


The Life & Death of Bucky Barnes

by lockedlocke



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hydra (Marvel), Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slice of Life, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tags Are Hard, Torture, Triggers, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, civil war never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2019-10-29 07:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 108,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17803499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockedlocke/pseuds/lockedlocke
Summary: “I think I’m going to write a book.”The words didn’t sound nearly as ridiculous once spoken as they had in his head. Bucky tore his eyes away from the television, away from the documentary, and the historian that was babbling facts. Facts so textbook that they hardly seemed believable even with a pinch of salt. A fistful would be better.





	1. The Barnes family

**Author's Note:**

> This fic as of now, is completed. They should be posted every friday, depending on how the week looks for me. 
> 
> Many many thanks for this fic go to Birdjay, who is the Steve to my Bucky in our rp's, and was kind enoug to write Steve's foreword, help me with editing, cheerleading and ideas. This fic is the result of a throwaway line in an rp that grew to be something much larger than what I think either of us believed at first.

“I think I’m going to write a book.”

The words didn’t sound nearly as ridiculous once spoken as they had in his head. Bucky tore his eyes away from the television, away from the documentary, and the historian that was babbling facts. Facts so textbook that they hardly seemed believable even with a pinch of salt. A fistful would be a better idea.

He turned down the volume, dropping his hand down in his lap while still holding the remote and looked over to Steve. Wonderful, beautiful Steve sat on his couch, pad on his lap, drawing the sleeping dog just beside him on the floor. Except now Steve was looking at him with those doe eyes of his, so Bucky cleared his throat and repeated himself, “I think I’m going to write a book.”

Steve blinked at him, hand perfectly still on his paper as he digested what Bucky was telling him, and took apart his words one by one. The confusion was both eminent and unsurprising. “‘bout what?” Steve asked him, lost in the moment. Bucky couldn’t help but smile at him. Steve had been so deep into drawing Winnie that he hadn’t even listened along to what was on television.

Bucky pointed over to the television with his foot, letting his gaze remain on the screen showing old film clips from the war. Black and white, spotty dots all over the screen and jumpy movements of the men in the uniforms. “There was someone on just now. He said that we, the Howling Commandos, turned up and turned the tide at Innsbruck. That’s not right. The battle was pretty much won when we turned up there. We don’t deserve credit for that.”

“Historians get stuff wrong sometimes,” Steve shrugged a little bit, turning his eyes back to the drawing of his dog, adding some shading or lines or whatever, Bucky wasn’t certain. “There’s a museum back home in Brooklyn with an exhibit about me. That one claims that Jimmy Fitzsimmons was one of my friends in my youth.”

Bucky snorted at that and rolled his eyes while he switched the channel. “Fitzsimmons punched you in the gut hard enough to make you puke, repeatedly. That’s true friendship right there.”

Steve snorted. “So what would you write then? Would you set the record straight? Remind historians we only arrived at Innsbruck to fire three shots and that was it?”

“Among other things. And that Fitzsimmons was a prick, that you in fact were not friends.” Bucky fell quiet, furrowing his brows. “I’d tell them the truth. I’d tell them what sort of little shit you were. I’d tell them what I was and what I wasn’t. I’d tell them what they did to me, so they stop pestering me about it once and for all.” Bucky stretched out his arms, folding them behind his head as he settled in. He had let the television rest on a western movie, or show, he wasn’t entirely certain.

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, sounding hopeful at Steve’s agreement with him. Steve nodded, added another line to the drawing of Winnie the dog and then looked to him with that sweet, wonderful smile of his.

“Yeah. I mean, if you want something done right, you best go out and do it yourself right?” Steve’s arm slid down to Winnie, petting the golden fur of the sleeping dog. She shifted slightly under the touch, hinting that she wasn’t asleep after all and turned to expose her belly, stretching her long front legs out in front of her.

Amidst Bucky’s own legs, Roxy stirred. She put her head on his knee and watched Steve pet her companion. Being rather envious, she shifted in the couch, swatting at Bucky with her paws. All he found himself capable of doing was to reach out and scratch her behind her ear to satisfy her. Bucky smiled to himself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He settled back in the couch, turning his focus to the television again. “Maybe I’ll write a book.”

 

~~*~~

 

_For Stevie, who’s more than just my rock, but also my mountain and has put up with all the shit you’re about to read about. He helped me endlessly with getting this timeline right chapter after chapter._

_For Winnie, who gave the best playbreaks moments before disaster struck._

_For Roxy, who would always look at me with her saucers eyes until I figured out how I wanted to phrase things._

_For Namazzi, who told me to get my shit together. In a professional way. Sort of._

_For myself, because writing this was something I needed far more than I initially realized. I’m glad I did it._

 

\--

 

“ _The latter seemed to be a victim to some emotion that he tried in vain to repress._ ”

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea - Jules Verne

 

\--

 

_Foreword_

_Written by Steven Grant Rogers_

When Bucky first told me that he wanted to write a book, I didn’t believe him. Mostly because I wasn’t listening to him, I know, I know, rude of me, but I was drawing and he interrupted and it was a whole thing. Anyway, he told me, and once I _was_ listening, I thought it was a great idea. Look -- both of us have had a rough go at life -- from the very start, if we’re being honest. Bucky’s life has been...non-linear, if I want to use the kindest word possible. I thought, if anything, writing his life story down would help him parse out what happened when, and sort out if all his memories were true or not. I didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. I didn’t expect for it to turn out to be what it is.

It’s his story, told exactly how he remembers it. Sure, I helped him here and there, but 99% of what you’re about to read is him. Remember that. Remember what he’s been through. Remember who he is. Remember there’s a person behind each and every word in this book.

I love Bucky, I always have. Maybe reading this will make you love him a little, too.

  


\--

 

_Author’s note_

Some of you might think that writing this book was an enormous stroke of ego. My name has been in the public for a while, some might think I’m trying to clear my name as an murderer. It already has officially, but that doesn’t stop people from still calling me a murderer. So yes, those of you who are reading this are sort of right. I’m not writing this to clear my name, my name doesn’t need clearing. I’m partially writing this to make you stop calling me a murderer.

There’s some of you who think I’ll be wanting a moment of fame, fifteen minutes, a moment on Ellen or have this book featured in Oprah’s book club or whatnot. You think that just because I’m with Steve, that I want to be a famous figure just like him, share his spotlight. You’re all wrong. I don’t give a fuck about Ellen, or Oprah’s book club. I don’t want fifteen minutes of fame or share Steve’s spotlight. It’s Steve’s, it’s always been his. I’ve been in the public focus for far too long already, and never wanted it.

I’m writing this, because at first I wanted to set the facts straight. The idea for this came while watching a documentary. It got a fact about The Howling Commandos wrong, and that annoyed me. Then Steve revealed another museum that got a fact wrong, and then it started gnawing at me. So I decided to write this, to get everything straight. To tell the tale out of the eyes of someone who actually was there, lived it, and is still alive to tell the tale.

Now, I’m not saying all historians are wrong. More often than not, they’re right. But you know what the problem is? It’s like that game of whispers. You know the one, where you sit in a circle and whisper into someone’s ear that you like grapes. They whisper it to the next and so on. By the time it comes back to you it’s no longer _Charlie likes grapes,_ but instead it’s _Charlie likes crates_. It’s not right anymore, but it’s also not that far off what was actually said. That’s the fault with historians: facts change as they leave the mouths of people.

My facts will come from my own mouth. So if I say that I smacked someone’s head against a bar counter, you can trust that I did just that. Because I was there, and I was the one doing it.

Now this is the point where I imagine that some of you are already questioning my credibility. Don’t deny it, I know some of you readers are. And I admit, yes, maybe my timeline is a little bit wonky at certain points. And you know what? So fucking what? I’ve had my brain scrambled more times than some of you probably have picked up a book. I openly admit that my short term memory is far, far from what it used to be. I’m forgetful. But one thing's for certain, what I remember is _accurate_. I might forget things, but I don’t imagine them to be elsewise. And what I’m not certain about, I keep to myself until I’ve got all the right facts. This book contains things I’m certain of. And if you’re still complaining about it? Well fuck you and put the book down, go do something else. I don’t care.

Chances are you’ve already paid for this book anyway.

 

\--

 

_**Chapter 1 - The Barnes family** _

 

My mother, Winifred Deirdre Hubbard, was an immigrant. Not that it says a lot, a lot of folks were then. She arrived in New York, late winter 1911. Alone mind you, aged sixteen when she stepped of the boat (having been fifteen when she got on it) with nothing more but a suitcase to her name. And all she had with her in that half empty suitcase was a second pair of boots, a second skirt, her brush, a mirror and a book.

She had originally left Limerick, Ireland with two books in her suitcase. One being The Bible, a gift from her grandmother, Angie. The other book she had bought with the bit of money she had and thus setting herself broke. Not really a strategic purchase, but who did clever things at fifteen? That book was Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea. She found it to be a fitting book to have with her for such a long journey overseas incase she sunk. She claimed she took more comfort in that book than the bible given to her by her grandmother. The Bible made it about halfway across the ocean before she tossed into the sea one evening.

What still amuses me to this day was that my mother couldn’t read. She got Jules Verne as something to work towards, and her grandmother found that any young woman needed a bible. Winnie thought elsewise, she believed that the only thing that a young woman really needed was a good set of boots (hence why she packed them) to kick a man in his crotch whenever he became a drag and got ideas.

You might wonder what my grandmother was thinking, letting Winnie Barnes, essentially a child cross the world on her own to settle in the new world? Truth to be told, she wasn’t thinking a damn thing about it, because my mother never told her. Winnie never saw a future for herself in Limerick, and what was she going to do? Marry another Irish drunk, have the standard seven kids and have three of them die? Face starvation and pneumonia over and over in the damn cold air? She wanted more than that.

So she left in secret, she told her grandmother only because the woman caught her trying to leave. She had to fess up, and boarded the boat that same evening all while lying about her age. What was her mother going to do when she found out anyway? Come to the States to bring her back? Not fucking likely.

When she finally was let into the States, she made quick work of everything. She went to settle in Brooklyn, just because that was where her feet carried her off to. She spent a few nights on the street, smacked a kid blue that tried to steal her suitcase and eventually found both work and lodging. It wasn’t glamorous work, but nothing really was back then.

Her first boss was an Italian man named Mr. Moretti, I never knew his first name because he was always Mr. Moretti to both her and me. He owned a butcher shop, and allowed my mother to come and clean, and serve customers at times when they needed extra hands. Even less often, she got to help with the actual butchering that went down in the shop. Mr. Moretti and the other men she worked with all had to admit much against their will that my mother knew exactly how to handle a butcher knife.

Mr. Moretti was a good man, and gave her an advance on her first two weeks of wages so my mother could get a room somewhere, get off the streets and sleep in a bed, be able to have a wash. And that’s just what she did. She didn’t like the house where she wound up, where it was her with other young and older women. Mom always said that to many hens in a henhouse was a surefire way to cause fights. Luckily for her, she spent most of her time working at the shop.

About a year after she got off the boat and started working in the shop, she met my father. George Michael Barnes (which he never pronounced the proper English way, the Scottish slur to it was ridiculously prominent). Now dad was a second generation immigrant. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he had never once in his life set foot on the land in Scotland, even though he often was found reminiscing about it.

Funnily enough, you wouldn’t have known that from listening to him going on about it. His accent was thick enough that he could have fooled anyone. He sounded like a shepherd that had lived in such isolation with his sheep for all his life up until the previous week. That was mostly a courtesy from his parents, however, whose accent was even heavier and who I honestly never fully understood myself. The point was, George spoke in his own language.

George was also known as dickhead. He would be an ass, and often so. But while he was cursing you out, he would only insult you and never drag your mother into it. He would fight you, but he would never be the one to initiate the fight and give the first punch, and he would never kick you in the gut when you were down in the gutter. He might have hated you, but he would have helped you up if you fell down a ladder. He might have looked deep into his bottle and loved the contents of it, but he wouldn’t smash it over your head. He would keep drinking. See where I’m going with this? Asshole with a sense of pride and honor. Yeah, you know the type, bet you’re seeing their face right now in your head as you’re reading this.

My father in the midst of his wild years, was also a few years older than my mother when they met. He was twenty-four then, making him seven years older when their paths first crossed in Mr. Moretti’s shop. Being a little bit of an ass with a streak of a womanizer, he saw my mother in there while he was making a pickup for his own mother and couldn’t resist dropping a comment at the sight of Winnie.

So he leaned in to his friend and said that he really enjoyed the sight of her chest, but by far far cruder than that. I’m not shy of cursing, far from it. But if I repeat what he said that day my mother would return from the afterlife to haunt me to the end of my days. And I’ve got a pretty damn long way to go.

What George didn’t know, however, as he was sharing this observation with his friend, was that he had just spoken about the woman was within her earshot. And this woman was the one who had packed an extra and rather particular set of boots with the intent to kick men in their crotch if they bothered her, if you remember. This very same woman was now holding a butcher knife.

Winnie had no intention of letting that comment slip. So she let him have it, loudly and without pause. Even dishing it out to George’s friend, who had stood beside him laughing at George’s misery until Winnie turned to him, and threatened him as well. She called him something along the lines with an oily weasel that had snuck out of the ass of a donkey.

Now, my father with his sense of pride always claimed they just took the order prepared for my grandmother and just left. However my mother, who I am far far more inclined to believe, said that they tucked their tails and ran.

George had a revelation that day. He realised it the instant they walked (or ran) out of the shop that Winnie was a woman to love and a woman to marry. He gets credit for giving her a week to cool down, almost as if he instantly knew what sort of woman he was dealing with. Had he gone back the next day she would have dished it out to him again.

Shuffling in to Mr. Moretti’s shop, hat off and a bit of a kicked-puppy-dog look in his eyes, he went and begged for her forgiveness. Winnie, still flustered, found the attempt of his sweet enough and forgave him. It was the beginning of their courtship, honestly. And within the month they had bonded over their historical and mutual hatred of the English. Dad took her on dates when he could afford it, and went to the park to steal flowers to give to her.

It was two months after Winnie had forgiven him, when George had been snuck into her room, that he noticed the lone book of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea on her nightstand collecting dust. Now my mother was a proud woman, so it took a lot of her to fess up that she hadn’t read the book because she couldn’t read.

My father wasn’t a learned man. He had gone to school up until the age of nine, and had then been sent to pick up a trade and become a carpenter. But he had spent enough time on the school bench to realise that he absolutely hated it, and to learn his ABC’s. So my father decided to teach her how to read. Somewhere hunched over those pages during late nights, they fell in love.

 

\--

 

War has a funny way of making people live their lives faster, even if you’re not directly involved in it. People used to live five years in the span of one. That’s something that the modern world doesn’t quite understand, that death was somehow much more real back then. We didn’t have the same sort of medical advancements, and the world war meant that people would be dying in the masses.

Young folk have a tendency to get scared. They feel like they’ve got to grow up quickly, and in a way they do. So they begin to make fast choices without thinking of the consequences. This means that within the span of a year couples were married and already pregnant or with a child on their hip. I’m not saying that this didn’t happen anyway back then. Of course it did. We didn’t have the same sort of contraception, and abortion? Hell, it wasn’t unusual for the woman to die in the process. So many couples married, and had children often within six months of the marriage. Everybody knew that it was a shotgun marriage, but nobody said it out loud. What mattered was that they had rings on their fingers by the time the child took their first breath.

So with that, I would like to say that the war did not spurr on the marriage of my parents. In fact, my mother getting pregnant was cataclysm that would in it’s own time create the Barnes family. It just coincidentally happened the year that the war broke out.

Now it’s important to note before you all start going off “ _Ha! He doesn’t even remember what year he was born in!”_ that I tell you to hold your horses and shut the fuck up. I know I was born in 1917 and that the war broke out in 1914. But this is something that is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Yes, I am the oldest of four, but that doesn’t mean I’m the first born. My mother was pregnant once before me. So sit down, and listen to what I’m about to tell you. Or read what I’m about to write.

My mother falling pregnant out of wedlock was what made my father propose. It was a small thing, they couldn’t afford more. They went and got their marriage license on the day and that was it. They couldn’t afford a party, or a fancy dress, or a ring like you see these days. They had other things to put their money for, and soon they’d have another mouth to feed.

My grandmother, George’s mother, wasn’t very happy to hear about the wedding. For as far as she was concerned, she found the fact that it was a shotgun wedding shameful. She also saw Winnie as a young woman with claws in her son, dragging him away from her life. The only son she had ever had. That wasn’t the case, but my father was coddled.

Winnie moved out of the henhouse as she called her building, George moved away from his mother, and together they moved into a small one bedroom apartment that was complete and utter shit. It was cold, damp, leaky, there was mold and rats scurried down the hallway. They couldn’t afford to be picky. It was miserable, down to its core, but they were happy together. At least until Winnie woke up one night with pain and found that she had coated their bed with blood.

Winnie miscarried George Barnes Jr. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know, and I don’t think she ever knew either. Maybe it was the cold in the apartment, or the mold, or the rats. Maybe it was because she and her husband smoked. Maybe it was because she worked. All she knew was that she miscarried at seven months pregnant, her chance at motherhood ripped away from her and that she was at the same time, bitterly and ironically lucky to be alive.

George and Winnie never liked to talk about George Barnes Jr. I suppose that is why he was never mentioned in any exhibit or any other book. It was a secret we as a family kept close to our hearts, because that’s what you did back then. It was more normal back then, as sad as it was. But you shut up, you swallowed down your sorrow and you moved on. People lost children every day. Winnie had lost three siblings growing up, and George had lost a brother of his own. But losing a child yourself? That’s a different sort of sorrow.

I’m not sure they wanted to stay married after that. Winnie always told me it was a dark time for them both. But they stayed together, not quite working through it but being by one anothers side.

And so with enough time, even the deepest, rawest wounds would heal. They would scar, and the skin would always be sensitive, but it would heal. With enough time and with enough patience on both their sides, things went back to normal. George kept working, building homes and apartments. Winnie kept working at Mr. Moretti’s, where she now no longer had to do cleaning work but worked solely with packaging, serving customers and and butchering. She took a lot of pride in that she could swing the sledgehammer just right, just like the men she worked with, to kill the cow.

Yeah, that’s how you did it back then. They had the cow out back and someone would swing the sledgehammer just right on the cow’s head or the pigs head, smash it dead, and then you’d butcher it. It wasn’t just swinging, there was a certain trick to it. If you didn’t get it right you’d have a whole lot of mess on your hands.

Now as you can imagine, it wasn’t women’s work. Far from it! But what was Mr. Moretti supposed to do when Joe one day was drunk in the morning? And only hit half the head of the pig he was supposed to slaughter, and hit his own knee with the rest of his momentum? He had a twitching but still living pig on the ground, and a worker with a broken knee. Winnie had never disappointed him before, and didn’t she then.

Things went back to normal she told me. They laughed again, they went to the picture show. They read to each other. Two years later, she was pregnant again. March 10th, 1917 I was born.

See? I told you I remember my own birthday. They made me forget it, but Steve helped me remember it again.

Bliss, however, is not something that we in the Barnes family know well. I was barely a month old when the United States officially joined WWI and declared war on Germany. The war to end all wars, and they truly believed that back then. Can you imagine the sarcasm that people had in their voice when they recalled this in the forties?

You can imagine how much fun that was for Winnie and George, who just got their marriage back on track and a baby. At end of June that year, the first troops arrived in France and my father was one of them. My mother with a newborn either to her chest or to her back, had to continue working in the shop. So there I was most of the time, sleeping along while she worked while my father was off fighting a war that wasn’t even his.

Now George never spoke much about his time in the army. He didn’t want to. It was a forbidden topic. My mother always told me that when he came back from France that he wasn’t the same anymore. She got the shell of her husband back after the war. Nowadays there’s a fancy word for that, nowadays it’s a medical condition. Had my father returned in this day and age, he would have been diagnosed with PTSD.

That wasn’t the case then, he was odd, but he had fought a war and somehow that explained all of his actions to everyone who knew him. For the first year that he was back with us, he didn't say a word. It could have been worse, he could have been the sort of man who sat in a chair and didn’t get up, who would stare endlessly into the wall.

George at least got up, he ate, he washed himself, he slept, he went to work. He just didn’t talk. Occasionally he’d grunt a response when he really had to, but otherwise he was quiet. It did grate on my mothers nerves, but she was a good talker and managed to go on talking on her own even if my father was like a wall.

It scared me. I didn’t remember it, but according to my mother I was frightened of him. He barely reacted to me, showed me little interest as I was about exploring the apartment. As far baby me was concerned, he was a stranger who had come into our lives. A stranger who didn’t say a word, but would wake up screaming at night, scaring the wits out of everyone else in the apartment.

She gained her first gray hairs that year, my mother always said, at the ripe age of twenty-three. She had a child of a year old, and a husband who wasn’t quite right. She had to calm him in the middle of the night during his nightmares, all while trying to make me stop screaming from fear and worry at the same time. It didn’t help that in the wake of my father's nightmares, he would lash out. She would wander around in the street with bruises that everybody knew were caused by my father, but nobody knew the circumstances.

I want to make it clear right here and now -- my father did not beat my mother. Yes, he lashed out in moments of fear, and yes, that caused injuries to my mother. But he never once beat her, or hurt her on purpose.

Those nightmares always stayed with him. But after being home for a bit more than a year, closing in on Christmas, he spoke again. I remember that actually, it was one of my earliest memories, or at least one of my earliest memories that I’ve unlocked. My mother was preparing something while he was trying to read. She must have been making a whole lot of noise because out of the blue he just said “God damn it, Winifred, keep it down.”

She turned to look at him, startled of course from the sudden break in silence, and then burst out in tears. The good sort, the tears filled with relief after having pressure and stress build up for so long and now finally being given the chance to ease.

 

\--

 

Rebecca was a winter child, very much wanted by both my parents. Me, however, at the age of four was not pleased at having another child in the apartment. A girl, even less. The attention that my mother had previously put on me disappeared all but completely, which was natural considering Becca was a baby and she breastfed. That didn’t stop me from being jealous.

My father noticed this, and considering I wasn’t going to school yet he ensured that the jealousy was to pass. Rather than let me stay home with my mother and my baby sister, he started taking me to his worksites. At first I hated it too, it was boring and my father was always busy with all the other men hammering and putting things together. There were no kids around and nobody to play games with me.

Eventually they taught me to hold a hammer, and gave me some pieces of scrap wood, some nails and told me that I could build my own little things. I did, mostly shitty crosses and attempts to recreate what they were making but in miniature. One day I tried to make a dog house (I was begging my parents for a puppy) but it was so damn crooked that one of the men that dad worked with just had to give it a little push and it toppled over. Everybody thought it was hilarious. I felt humiliated, of course, and not unlike what my mother would have done, I tossed my hammer down to the man’s foot.

That caused everyone to howl with laughter, and I instantly felt better. That afternoon, some of the men helped me build a dog house that wouldn’t knock over. I was all proud of myself, but my father wouldn’t let me have a puppy. I cried all the way home, and Winnie tried to comfort me when we came home. I got her full attention, and her fury directed to George asking him why they couldn’t just get a damn dog.

“Cause I’ll sneeze meself into an early grave!” He shouted at her before going out for beers. It took a while, and once Becca was asleep that night, she read to me. We had moved into a bigger apartment by then, and I had my own room for the time being. I’d have to share it with Becca when she grew older, but then it was all mine. I loved that evening. Being curled up to her and smelling the smoke on her clothes, the scent of bread laced alongside it. She read to me from that book she had taken with her from Limerick. It was the first of many nights where she read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for me.

My jealousy towards Becca lasted for about four months, and then I started acting like a big brother should act. By the time that the twins, Doris and Margaret, came along in an additional two years, l was a professional at being a big brother.

Becca was the sibling that they interviewed the most after the so-called death of Steve and I. She liked to paint herself as a bit of a saint in our youth. It goes without saying, since I’m bringing this up, that she was in fact, not a saint. She was a little shit, we all called her the she-devil and she took that nickname with a whole lot of pride.

I say these next couple of paragraphs with a whole lot of love, because I truly do love Becca with every fucking fibre in my body. But Becca was hellfire incarnate. She was a screaming banshee with a glint in her eyes that made you think of a wild horse moments before it tried to buck off a cowboy. She was lovely, but she was a wild child. She didn’t walk when she reached that milestone, she instantly began running.

Our poor mother had to chase her around the apartment in the mornings just to get her dressed, and Becca would be running all around the chairs and under the tables and over their bed, jumping on it until she broke it while she was screaming at the top of her lungs in hysterics and joy. She pulled constant pranks that to this day I still don’t understand how a toddler even came up with in the first place.

And bully, she used to bully in that childish way. She didn’t mean any harm beyond just pestering the living hell out of me when I was trying to read a book on my own to learn my letters. She would run up to me, smack me on my arms, legs or head and run straight back. She had enough energy to do this for hours on end. And of course the moment that I tried to smack her back, _I_ would get into trouble for it. Because it wasn’t okay to hit little girls no matter if they were being little shits. She knew exactly when to turn on the waterworks to win anything.

Becca was three years old when the twins came along. Doris and Margaret were identical, and as infants who looked like sack of potatoes, they didn’t even have a single birthmark to tell them apart. There was a level of doubt when my mother had them that they had been swapped around a couple of times. So after that Winnie created a routine. Every morning no one was allowed to go anywhere until she had informed everyone which one of the girls was wearing what, going out of her way to ensure they were dressed as differently as possible and grumbling how she couldn’t understand how people dressed their twins to look alike.

When the twins were three months old, Doris started screaming. The next day, Maggie started screaming. Neither of them stopped screaming for for three months and both of them stopped on the day. Doris first, and then Maggie the following day. Twins, with colic. Fun times.

We were all exhausted, it was a trying time. Hell I found it difficult, and I can’t even imagine what my parents felt at that time. They screamed through most of the night, waking each other up. And on the few nights when they did sleep without screaming, my father had a nightmare and set them off. My parents tried to ease them as best as they could, but nothing really seemed to help.

The screaming was heard all the way into the next room that I now was sharing with Becca. Becca would wake up and _she_ would start crying because she was so exhausted. It was downright impossible for me to sleep as well, and I was the moodiest little git. I truly do believe that that month was the month in my life where I was spanked the most because I was big mouthing everyone in my own exhaustion.

We got a lot of complaints that month from our neighbours. All of which my father handled very easily. He would go up and open the door, listen to the complaints more often with a twin in his arms than not. When they were done with their rants, he’d ask them on a cool, yet polite tone if they would like to swap places.

It goes without saying that nobody ever accepted the offer. Everybody was annoyed by the screaming coming from our apartment, but they much more preferred to just be annoyed by the screaming rather than have to deal with it. His finishing touch of course, would be to call down the hallway when they were leaving and tell them to fuck off. Always followed by my mother calling him out for his language.

Once the screaming stopped it was like heaven. It was like angels decided to visit us and shut up. There wasn’t even a choir. Dad even purposely made the clock stop so we didn’t have to listen to the ticking. It was one of the best nights of sleep I’ve ever had in my life. After those three months of screaming, it seemed like Doris and Maggie had screamed enough for the next five years, and almost nothing would make them cry. Thank fuck for that.

Becca, Doris, and Maggie however, were all wonderful and they all meant the world to me. Becca with her constant disturbing me when I read. Doris and Maggie with their three month of hell given to us. They still wormed their way into my heart and they stay there still to this day, many many decades later, there are no other women that I’ve loved as much as I love them. This, of course, includes my mother.

Becca might have been a she-devil, but you bet your ass that she held an iron fist over the household when Winnie went back to Ireland for the first time since arriving to New York. Dad was out of a job. She looked after the twins, cooked, cleaned, continuously smacked my head with newspaper until I did my homework and even shoved dad out of the door to make him find a new job. She did all of this at the age of twelve.

Doris, who was an amazing writer with such an imagination that I still have to find in the modern age. Who always wrote me stories to read when I couldn’t afford new books or when the library had nothing interesting in. Who eventually started to work in a bookstore so she could get an employee discount for my sake, and sneak out books that were to be thrown away and give them to me.

Maggie, quietest and gentlest of them all. Sweet sensitive Maggie who just needed to take one look at people and know how they were feeling. Claimed that she could feel it herself. Who comforted me so many evenings when I was feeling down by just holding me and brushing her fingers through my hair. Occasionally singing me a song, or letting me enjoy the silence and never once pushed or asked questions as to why I was feeling sad. Who did the same for our dad when he had nightmares and was out of it that day.

I love all my sisters equally, and I have nothing but respect for them and the way that they chose to live their lives. From what I’ve heard, they lived happy lives. I can’t confirm, nor can I deny that. I wasn’t there for those parts. I just hope that they were happy, and I hope that they know, wherever they are, that they always have a solid spot in my heart for them and that I love them.

I had many friends back then, but none of them ever managed to give me the same companionship or understanding as they did. They were always my number one priority. I was a big brother to my core, and I was looking after them even if they were more than capable of handling themselves. They were daughters of Winnie Barnes, after all.

They held that spot for five years. From the day I became a big brother at the age of four, and all the way up until the age of nine, when I met a blonde, blue eyed, asthmatic little asshole named Steve Rogers.

 

~~*~~

 

It had taken Bucky more than half an hour before he finally managed to get the printer to spit out the pages. It had involved going back and forth from the kitchen table to smack it, unplug it, restart it, turn it back to factory settings, to his laptop. To press print repeatedly, groan in frustration when his program wouldn’t find the printer, when it kept attempting to save in a PDF, and finally, when it died and he had to go and find the charger for it.

Eventually he just relocated to the floor right in front of the printer, raising his hand to Steve to let him know that he was not in the mood to answer Steve’s concerned question if he was alright. When the printer finally did start to spit out a paper, Bucky was distraught to find out that it was an email, which he had absolutely no use for.

He had muffled a scream in his own hands. HYDRA had prepared him for all sorts of technology, and he could bypass almost any security system in the world, hack into other computers and hijack everything. But it seemed, that printers were in a league of their own.

So when the printer finally spat out the thirty something pages after an additional five minutes and Bucky got to hold the warm bundle in his hands, a feeling of surrealism washed over him. Making him think that in an odd way that it felt like his childhood had never been more real than it had been up until that moment, until he was staring down at it.

In a way, there was some truth to it. His childhood had been his until HYDRA had made him forget it. The memories had come back, fragment by fragment. But seeing it in his mind and thinking back on didn’t quite feel like he was looking at his own memories. They had belonged to Bucky Barnes, but he wasn’t Bucky Barnes anymore. He had become someone else over the time, unraveling the memories of another man. He had accepted that now, quite some time back that he never would become the person he once upon a time had been. He was a different person who happened to share a history with this Barnes.

Now staring down at the lettering of the pages, papers that had been blank up until the black text that he had written had gotten printed on it. Now filled with secrets that he had come to remember again over a long course of time. Now, they truly felt his again, and his alone.

Standing up and leaving his laptop on the floor, Bucky wandered down the hallway. Eyes scanning over the words as Roxy got up and followed him, nails clicking on the floor as he read the first few words over and over again. _My mother, Winifred Deirdre Hubbard, was an immigrant._

He found Steve in the living room, sitting where Bucky had left him earlier in his hurry to continue the fight with the printer. He was drawing again, making Bucky sit down very carefully by his side so Steve’s hand wouldn’t slip. And there it was, the quiet proof that Steve had been watching him while he had been writing. Steve was adding the last few lines to the image, drawn from an angle. Bucky saw himself sitting at the kitchen table, hiding behind the laptop and metal hand covering his mouth. his brows were furrowed, focused fully as he was staring at the screen, stuck in a puzzle of words and memories.

He had been so absorbed by writing the first few years of his life that he hadn’t even noticed that Roxy had been curled up and asleep by his feet. God he loved that dog.

“You were watching me?” Bucky asked, a smile on his face as he looked to Steve who was both ageless and beautiful. Smiling so softly and warmly that it radiated the first warm springtime sun.

“Yeah, you looked so absorbed into what you were doing. I wanted to memorize it but taking a picture would disturb you so, I drew you.” Steve lowered his pencil and offered the sketch for Bucky to see. Bucky took it, gentle fingers as always, like the drawing pad was a sheet made out of porcelain and Steve was sharing an intimate part of himself. He was, he was showing Bucky a moment out of Steve’s eyes.

“This is nice.” Bucky said, handing it back to him. “I like it.”

“I’m not real pleased with the shading, but I like the drawing.” Steve closed the drawing pad and put it down beside him, beaming at Bucky. “How did my writer do, you get anything done or was your frown just for show?”

“I did.” Bucky said with pride, handing over the bunch of papers that he had printed, still warm to the touch. Steve took the papers just as gently as Bucky had taken the drawing pad. Steve looked down to it, leaving Bucky waiting and biting on his lip.

“That’s wonderful Buck. Am I allowed to read it?” Steve asked, turning his gaze to Bucky again and making him feel positively charmed at the sight and gesture. Here Steve was, holding the beginnings right in front of him, knowing it possibly even better than Bucky did himself. They had always been honest to one another, save from a handful of secrets. And this chapter didn’t contain a single secret. Despite all of that, Steve was still asking his permission to read the chapter. Just because it were Bucky’s own words and thoughts pulled from the depths of his head. After all these years and their hardships, he still didn’t make any assumptions.

“Yeah! Yeah of course you can read it, Stevie.” Bucky smirked to him. “I want you to read it. I’d like for you to read it actually. And tell me if I got something wrong. I’m pretty confident in my memories and all, but I’m sure that at some point in the story I’m going to get the timeline wrong. And you’re the only one who I trust to correct me and get it right. Would you want to help me with that?”

“Of course, I’ll help you with that!” Steve sounded thrilled at the suggestion, shifting in the couch. “I’d love to help you, Buck.” Steve leant in to give him a kiss, pressing their foreheads together after and showing that sunshine of a smile again. Bucky just smiled at him, grateful for the mountain that was Steve Rogers.

Neither of them spoke for a while, Steve’s gaze returned to the papers as his fingers flicked through them. Not reading yet, but skimming through it. And as Steve was skimming Bucky caught sentences of his writing. _Smacked a kid blue. My father with a sense of pride. Winnie had never disappointed him before. Would have been diagnosed with PTSD._

“How are you feeling?” Steve’s words were soft, almost a whisper. Careful as if he was stepping onto thin ice with all of his full body weight.

“M’fine.” Bucky mumbled with a shrug. Truth to be told, he was cold, he always was cold. And so he took the moment in action to curl up more against Steve, pulling the sleeves of his shirt over his knuckles. He felt Steve’s arm around him, and a soft press of his lips to the top of his head. “Just made me miss them, that’s all.”

“Yeah…” Steve whispered, holding him tight. “I miss them too. But with this you’ll preserve them forever. I think that they would be so proud of you. I am proud of you for doing this.” Steve stroked his fingers over the chapter title. And while Bucky doubted that they all would be, at least he had Steve’s pride in him.


	2. Steven Grant Rogers

“So what are you going to tell them about me?” Steve asked, leaning in over the dining table. Grinning and not once taking his eyes off Bucky as he tried to set up the table for the afternoon. His laptop was still shut, and to his left he had his journals. He was still in the process of putting everything in the same timeline, and coloured post-it notes had helped. “You going to tell them how I stole your heart from day one?”

“Something like that.” Bucky smirked to Steve, sitting down on the chair and opening the laptop. Without even looking at the keyboard, he smoothly typed in his password. With his other, he grabbed the notebook at the top of the pile and flipped it open on the first green post-it. Green post-its meant that the memory was about Steve. “I also plan on telling everyone how you were a chihuahua with anger issues. How Jimmy Fitzsimmons was in fact  _ not _ your friend, and make them understand how often you  _ really _ were sick.” 

Steve made a face, but nodded a couple of times. “Well, let me know if my Hemmingway needs anything alright?” he said, bouncing into the kitchen. Bucky rolled his eyes and opened his writing program. Oh writing about Steve was going to be a lot of fun. He had a whole lot to say to the world about Steve.

 

~~*~~

 

**_Chapter 2 - Steven Grant Rogers_ **

 

I started school at the age of eight, as everyone did back then. I was a bad student. History likes to say that I was a good student because of my grades. I guess there is some truth to that. I did get good grades, but I was a horrible student. I was (am) smart, and as a result, I never really felt particularly motivated to do well on the school bench. Since everything was so easy, I got bored during class. I wasn’t motivated. Thus, I had a terrible habit of daydreaming which all my teachers hated. 

They could talk on about pretty much anything, and I’d be elsewhere in my head. Most of the time stuck wondering what would be happening next in the book that I was reading. Dreaming that I was along for the adventure and fighting alongside my heroes. Like kids do, we’ve all done it. So it wasn’t that surprising when they found that I only had to look at the blackboard once or twice and have the entire class memorized.

A clever student, but a bad student. These things are the little facts that people get wrong. And thus over the years have ended up in a museum, and caused unintended inaccuracies. So how does an exhibit come to such a conclusion you wonder, now when I’m telling you a different story?

Simple. My grades are public records. So it’s easy for anyone to still go in and see whatever remnants of those that are left and see that I excelled in Math and English, among other subjects. Then there’s the fact that the military trained me to be a sniper -- another skill for which you need great math skills. So naturally, I must have been a good student. There were none of my old teachers left to argue, to tell anyone how many times I got rapped across my fingers for dreaming off. 

Friends, however, I had an easy time making. I was never alone, not for one day. I had this ability to make people gravitate towards me. I could talk to pretty much anyone about anything, given just enough clues of what they liked. I lacked shame, my mother used to say. 

This was part of the reason why Stevie and me crossed paths. It was my second year at school and I was a prominent figure by then. At one point during recess I spotted this scrawny little kid sitting on his own. New face, so a new kid who just started. School had just started for the year, so it had been his very first day. But the more I looked, the more out of place he seemed. He must have been at least a head shorter than all the other boys in his year. 

What struck me was that he was sitting all alone. At the age of eight, children hadn’t lost that uncanny ability just yet to go up to anyone and talk, making friends within the span of a minute. But he was sitting alone while the other kids (me included) were kicking a ball around. 

During the second recess of the day, I went over to him. I asked him what the hell he was doing here. Stevie, which I didn’t know was his name at the time, glared up at me. Of all the things I remember, I remember very vividly how white his knuckles turned as he stared up to me, clutching the bench. I don’t know if it was because of my attitude walking over to him and just boldly demanding his attention, or if it was because he had shitty blood circulation -- as a kid you don’t pay attention to that. 

“What do you mean?” Steve asked me, huffing his chest out in that way he does when he’s preparing for a fight or an argument. A sign I would see many more times over the year.

I looked him up and down. “Well, what are you doing here? They don’t let babies into school.” 

Steve didn’t take to kindly to that, as you may imagine. Right then and there, he showed me what he was going for in his life. Someone who was full of fight and passion. Because here was this blonde scrawny little asshole, and he tried to punch me. But back then Steve was built like a grasshopper (he still hates it to this day when I remind him), legs, arms and neck too damn skinny to match a slightly larger block of torso. I stepped back, Steve spun around in the gravel and was already eating dirt without me having to do a damn thing. 

Steve was adamant that he wasn’t a baby, and smacked away my hands when I tried to help him up. I asked him why he was sitting alone, why he wasn’t playing with the ball with everyone else and why he was sitting on his own. Asthma, he told me. I didn’t know what that was, so he explained to me that he couldn’t physically strain himself, or he wouldn’t be able to breathe. I feel a little bit horrible about it now, but I laughed at that. Mostly because I didn’t believe that was an actual thing. 

Turns out that it was, so the joke was on me. 

We talked for a little bit more, so I sat beside him. Steve seemed to have forgotten that he had tried to punch me moments earlier, and while still on edge with my presence, he seemed to enjoy to have someone to talk to. Someone who took interest in his existence. He looked almost heartbroken when recess was over and we were to go back to class. 

At the end of the school day, I caught up with him on the streets saying that I’d walk with him a bit. I found out his name during that walk, and we stopped for lemonades that I paid for and talked some more. Funnily enough I found out during that walk that he only lived a block away from me. 

I walked him to school again the next morning, and at the end of class that day. By the time that Wednesday had come around, he was sniffling. By Thursday, he had a cold. In the middle of freaking August. I laughed at him for that. Got a punch on my arm, but I laughed. We became friends, and Steve, well. He was more interesting than anyone I had ever met before. 

Here he was, this eight year old kid who had been more ill in his life than my entire family had been in their years breathing. Who loved to draw and was pretty damn good at it. Who was such a fighter. Who sat by himself most of the time during recess if I wasn’t there, but would shoot up the moment that he saw someone being bullied or getting shoved around. He didn’t care if the other kids were a head larger than him, and three times his size. He tried to take them on anyhow, even if it meant that he got shoved in the dirt with a bleeding, broken nose. He got in so many fights, and could never finish them.

This is where history thinks that I started fighting for him, finishing his fights because I felt bad for him. I didn’t feel bad for him, he walked right into those fights himself, so why should I feel sorry for such a little shithead? I ended the fights for him because otherwise he would be put back into the hospital or get something broken, again. I wanted my friend around at school. I wanted to be able to hang out with Steve, and if that meant that I had to pull other kids of him, then so be it. 

For the record, I pulled a lot of kids off him during our first years together. Jimmy Fitzsimmons was one of those, who according to Brooklyn’s very own exhibit about Steve, claims they were friends. They weren’t. Jimmy punched Steve so hard in the gut that he made him puke, and then he made fun of Steve for being a weakling. So they fought, a lot, and never once was a friendly word passed between them. 

They would pass the hall in school and call each other names like it was their hello. Steve would stare daggers into Jimmy’s back and wait for him to even lay a finger the wrong way on someone else and he’d tackle him. Jimmy would do the same, he would keep an eye out for Steve to be alone, and then he would shove him down in the ground as many times as he could until the teachers or I stepped up. The teachers rarely did though, they didn’t give a fuck. I did, however, and Jimmy learned quickly that I’d kick him in the balls when I caught him. Got sent home for that three times. 

Jimmy Fitzsimmons was not the only kid I pulled off Steve. I pulled off Two-Toes Johnny (who had in fact eight toes and was missing two, Steve informed me), a kid named Dutch who was French, Clyde Donaldson, Ollie Warren, Charley Cross, Percy Spears, Lonnie, Larry Henderson, Bettie Ward, Phillip Bowman, Vera McGee. I’m just going to stop here because this gets the point across. I could fill this entire book with fights that Steve started and that I had to finish for him one way or another. Steve had to help me with these names, we searched for the few remnants of our school records that there are. If you search, you’ll see that they all existed at one point. 

Oh, and fuck Eddie Foreman in particular. The lying son off a bitch. It came as no surprise really that he ended up killing his wife and kid about fifteen years later. He used to torture dogs, tried to rip out their claws with a set off pliers. That might have been one of the few fights where I actually joined Steve in beating the crap out of someone. No, I didn’t get to keep that dog either, and for those of you wondering, he turned out fine. Forever terrified of men, but the little girl who owned him looked after him well, once she got over the terror of what Eddie Foreman had done to her dog. 

Steve did good, though. With his heart of gold he did more than anyone else to curve bullying on the school yard. Back then nothing really was done about it. Teachers didn’t care, and fathers back then just encouraged their kids to be little shits and punch others. To be a man. My own father told me this many times, and I got praised whenever he heard I had beat someone up. So here Steve was, an underdog himself, standing up for other underdogs.

Stevie didn’t want anyone to feel satisfied for beating up a kid. So he was the first one to confront them about it. He angered a lot of kids for getting in their way. There is no denying it. But the terrible part was, Steve put himself out there for everyone else, but rarely did someone return the favour when he was the actual target. I did, if I saw it, but I can’t remember anyone else ever doing it for him. 

Now, Steve’s shithead attitude wasn’t limited to just the school yard. I wish it had been, but it wasn’t. It would be rather frequent that he tried to tackle someone on the street. I remember one incident where he went for a teenager who was pestering his girlfriend, I don’t know what about anymore. But there he was. Kicking a seventeen year old kid just so he’d let go of his girl. Giving her the chance to smack him or run away. 

He told grown-ass drunk men to shut the hell up. He got kicked out of school for a week when he claimed that his teacher was being unfair to students (And he was, we all hated Mr. Jefferson for that reason).  _ Another  _ teacher for saying that girls weren’t as clever as boys and that they all should just stay home. A kid who was beating up a stray dog (he actually won that one, the kid was actually smaller than him, but younger). He threw a rock threw some old lady’s window for saying something racist about Paulie, who was a young black kid working in the local grocery store. He told a nun “That’s not very godly like,” when he caught her stealing donations. He’d wound up screaming at her that those were meant for those who needed it the most and not her damn coffee. He lost that fight, even back then you couldn’t win against the church. 

So yeah, Steve was a little shit head in more ways than one. Passionate beyond belief for everyone else and standing up for what was right. But he was also a dumbass who didn’t know when to skip a fight. He had to fight them all, and never once took height, weight and age into consideration. So he was always sporting some bruise from one battle or another, and I wound up taking him home to his mother beat up more times than I actually care to admit. 

Sarah told me it actually had lessened since he met me, which boggled my mind. How could it be less when it felt like I dragged him away from something new every damn day?

 

\--

 

Steve’s mother, Sarah, was an absolutely wonderful woman. She had all the odds stacked up against her from a very young age, but still managed to make something good out of it for both her son and herself. For her, Steve was the world, and she did anything for him. 

Not unlike my own mother, she had come to New York at a young age to build a new life for herself. As someone with a bit of medical training, she could get into a hospital and began to work as a nurse. She was a caring woman, always going out of her way to help others. I suppose that’s where Steve gets it from, although in a different way. 

She was motherly, always very confident to ensure that one was comfortable and had everything that they could possibly need. She both sweet and kind, and I honestly can’t come up with a single questioning quality about her. She was the sort of woman that people only wish that they had in their lives, that they had the chance to just meet for five minutes. I suppose that’s what drew Joseph to her. 

Neither of us really know how the pair met, but we do know that Joseph’s family didn’t enjoy that their son met someone like Sarah. Whatever that was supposed to mean, but it probably had something to do with the fact that she was a young woman in New York with no family and hardly any money. She was, what some people would kindly and unkindly call, a simple girl. 

So when they married they cut all contact off with Joseph’s family. Their marriage wouldn’t be a long one, however. Just like my parents, Steve’s dad had to go to war. The tragedy was that Sarah was pregnant when Joseph went off to war. My father got to come back. Steve’s didn’t. He died a bit less than two months before Steve even had the chance to take his first breath of air. 

Joseph’s family still didn’t want much to do with Sarah after that, not even when she had Steve. They much more preferred to act like she never existed. So there Sarah was, a young woman on her own with a child in a city that was expensive even then and had to make ends meet. And unlike Winnie, she didn’t have the luxury of taking Steve along to her work. Not to mention, Steve was a sickling from day one. 

Somehow, she managed. She managed to stretch out the money to last for months. She managed to work, and she managed to find people to watch Steve for her when she was off working. She tried so hard to keep Steve healthy, to keep the medical payments down. Because Steve, with his wide variety of illnesses in such a short period of time, was an expensive child. 

Now as an adult you realise that the only way she made the money last was with her working extra, shift after shift after shift for maybe another extra dollars. She sacrificed her own sleep, her own meals, her own time and her own social life just to pull the strings together and to make it work for them. All through this, through years and years of stress which would make most people break, she never once lost her temper or her kindness, she never lost her sense of self, raised her voice, turned nasty or hit anyone. 

Through it all she remained the wonderful human being that the world didn’t deserve. 

I met Sarah near the end of the first school week, actually walking Steve back to his apartment and following him all the way up to the door. I like to say that she took an instant liking to me, but if it’s true or not I don’t know. The truth, however, is that I wanted her to instantly like me. I had grown to adore Steve in a very short time. As kids it’s important to make parents like you, otherwise you wouldn’t be allowed to come over and hang out. 

Whether she needed a moment or not to decide if she liked me or not, she was very happy to see that Steve finally had a friend. Something he had struggled with all his life because of his attitude and because he was built like a grasshopper. She worked a lot, so she wasn’t always around for him either. So she was very pleased to see that he was spending his time after school with another boy, playing, roaming around. Doing everything but our homework. 

When the winter months started coming, my mother, who by then was very aware about Steve and had met him a couple of times, worried that our roaming in the streets would result in him growing sick. So she marched over to Sarah one day, banged on her door with the intention of asking if it would be okay for Steve to come over every day after school until she got off work. 

What was meant as going over there just for one question before going off to get groceries with the twins. Ended up with my mother sitting in Sarah’s kitchen for several hours. Talking with one another and bonding over the fact that they were both Irish. Mom was still there when Steve came back from school, me tagging along, of course. We were supposed to leave but wound up still sitting there for another two hours before mom remembered in a panic that she still needed to do groceries and get food on the table before Dad came home. 

It goes without saying that food wasn’t on the table by the time he wanted it. Winnie spat at George that if he wanted food an hour ago he should have gone and made it himself. There was nothing shameful about it. He shut up after that. He didn’t cook his own meals, but he sure as hell stopped complaining about them not being on the table by the time that he sat down. 

That winter I also learned from Stevie that their Christmases were usually pretty damn depressing. With his father’s family wanting nothing to do with them. And Sarah’s family being back in Ireland and all. It usually meant that the two were alone in their shitty apartment with barely enough wood to keep the fire going, let alone having some form of celebration meal. It usually was just what Sarah could get her hands on and afford, which usually wasn’t a lot. 

This gnawed on me, it didn’t sit right. Now we didn’t have it a lot of money either, but George always made sure that we kids got a nice Christmas. Sure, both my parents worked, so in that sense money was slightly better than for Steve and Sarah, but there were four of us, so that evened out. We just had the luck that my parents could hustle extra cash by the side. Dad, as a carpenter, could help people out in the neighbourhood off the books for a bit extra. My mom didn’t work full time, but she had a good boss who looked after his employees as well as he could. Mr Moretti was a generous man, and at times a bit to generous, which eventually drove him into debt. 

He insisted on closing his shop on Christmas Eve and day, so his employees could be with their families. On top of that he must have been one of the first bosses to give out Christmas bonuses. He always took in a pig extra for slaughter, just so his staff could take home some meat, ensuring that everybody had something. So that was half a Christmas meal off the shoulders of my parents, a bonus, and money on the side. That meant that yes, unlike Steve and Sarah, we were warm during Christmas, we didn’t go hungry, and we got presents too. 

So with all of this going on that Christmas Day, after having opened our presents already (I got my second Jules Verne book, mom had gifted me 20,000 Leagues by then) and waiting for dinner to come round, I tried to read. I couldn’t focus on the book and kept wondering how it was for Steve. So innocently, yes,  _ innocently _ , I went over to my mother and asked her if I could go and check up on Steve, no idea what I’d set in motion.

Winnie wasn’t happy about it at first, she wanted her boy at home with her for the holidays. But I had my defense warmed up, knowing that if I twisted it a little bit into concern over Steve, she’d let me go so I could come at ease. It just turned out that what Winnie was hearing, she didn’t like either. She didn’t like it for the sheer simplicity of the fact that Steve and Sarah were being on their own with no fun. 

So she commanded George to take over the stove, when he exclaimed he had no clue how to do that she just shouted at him that “just stir and don’t let anything get burned for fucks sake!” And slammed the door shut in his face, with me in tow.

We marched right over to Sarah’s apartment and went up the stairs, there she banged down the doors for the second time but not the last in her lifetime. Sarah was spluttering her defenses, saying that they had nothing to bring and they didn’t want to intrude and that it was a time for family and all sorts of bullshit that Winnie wasn’t hearing. 

She told Sarah that day that they were practically sisters at that point, and that she would be offended if they didn’t come, and that she didn’t care if she had nothing to bring. Steve stood by her side, and I remember this image very vividly, he was practically shaking with excitement and/or cold next to Sarah at the prospect of it. Tugging at her dress and asking in a low but not very discreet whisper if they could go. 

Winnie wasn’t going to give Sarah a chance to argue or counter. She set out with the idea to invite Sarah and Steve over, and wasn’t going to leave until she had the answer she had set out for. A yes.  Sarah and Steve dressed up in their coats, and with quite literally nothing in their hands but a bunch of apologies from Sarah we walked back to our apartment. 

Steve had a blast when he came and joined us. He played cards with me and my dad, got to enjoy a proper Christmas meal and played with my sisters some while I was tasked with the dishes. Winnie and Sarah sat in a corner when they were done with all the work, my mother would smoke and she would talk to Sarah about how her miserable Irish Christmas had been during their youth. Sarah laughed at most of her statements, and one-upped her on some of them. 

Dad listened to the radio for a whole thirty seconds before he fell asleep. Eventually, I started reading my book. Steve was busy drawing -- he made so many for my mother to thank her that she didn’t know what to do with them all. 

Come the end of the evening, we had all fallen asleep. Winnie made George carry Steve home, accompanying Sarah. To this day I still think that it’s one of the best Christmas’s Steve ever has had in his entire life. 

 

\--

 

Now, it goes without saying that Steve was sick. A lot. 

Hell, one of the things his Smithsonian exhibit so happily likes to mention is his track record of what he’s been hospitalised for, which is just about everything under the moon, really. He had both scarlet and rheumatic fever as a kid. Got a cold approximately once a month, which would leave him sniffing for at least a week. Approximately one out of three colds would turn into sinusitis. More often than just leaving it at sinusitis, life and Steve’s health enjoyed kicking him to the curb just as much as kids twice his size did. So sinusitis would turn into bronchitis, bronchitis would turn into pneumonia. 

He had low blood pressure to the point where it would leave him faint if he got up from a chair too fast, and he’d grow pale when we climbed stairs. It also left his hands and his feet ice cold, and he was always freezing. Because he couldn’t do exercise without going face first in the dirt, doing a little bit had him out of breath. It set his heart pounding in his chest, which the doctors dismissed as heart trouble because frankly. At that point they were sick of seeing him all the time. 

Another telltale sign of his, beyond the chest pains that he got from exertion, was that his body was working so hard to keep whatever it was at bay that his hands shook. So they said he had a nervous issue. He didn’t. Of course he was going to be tired a lot, his body was working overtime to keep him running, of course, he would need to lay down and sleep for an hour in the afternoon if he had the chance. 

On top of all that the fucker couldn’t breathe right. If I cracked a joke too dirty he would laugh so much until the moron triggered an asthma attack. Which to be fair, was somewhat my fault because I kept cracking them. But when the opportunity arises do you really let your chance go?

This, of course, affected school for him. He spent about as much time home in bed as he did on the school bench. Steve was a bright kid (this doesn’t change the fact that he’s also a dumbass), a lot brighter than they gave him credit for. But he had trouble keeping up with his homework because he missed so many classes from school, because he was laying in bed with a fever burning 104. By the time the poor bastard was just starting to catch up, he slipped back again. 

I don’t know how many hours I spent with him in his kitchen, helping him through the homework. But it was a lot of them. He was absolutely worthless at math (yes Steve, you were) but I managed to hammer the most basic rules into his thick skull. When he was sick, I would drop by with his homework after school, sit and talk with him and try to make school seem like it was boring without him. It was, but I was also a kid and easily distracted, sometimes school actually was fun even without Steve. Somehow he could always tell when I was lying for his sake. 

I used to come and read for him then. Just so he didn’t have to listen to the shitty radio program that was on and give him a bit of a break. I used to read 20,000 Leagues to him, determined to get him as stuck into science fiction as much as I was. It never seemed to stick, but he was always happy to have me come and read to him. If he found the book to be absolutely dreadful, he never once told me, and still hasn’t. 

There were even times when I would purposely skip school to go and spend the day with Steve when he was lying sick in bed, coughing up a lung or sweating and swearing out a fever. Those days were most often when Sarah had to work, but found that she couldn’t because of Steve being ill. 

I always knew money was tight for them, it was something we had bonded over. I understood that Sarah not being able to work would mean that there would be no money for them. Where would they be if they had no heating, no food or no roof over their heads? So I turned up in the morning and told her I would watch Steve for her, that it was okay, that she could go to work. 

Sarah probably wanted me to go to school as well, but I imagine she had a hard time saying no when she saw that the only times Steve perked up was when I was around, and after all, they did need the money. The school just thought that I got sick alongside with Steve because we were attached hip to thigh because he couldn’t reach up, so it wasn’t that unlikely for me to get sick for hanging out with the sick kid. I did at times. Sarah never told my mother, and I went home in the evenings and it seemed like she never knew the better about me skipping out like that. 

She probably knew, Winnie Barnes had eyes not just in the back of her neck but also on the street. She never once stopped me from doing so. All she did was smile at me when I came home, and asked how Steve was doing and if he was feeling any better. She had, over time, become his second mother.

 

\--

 

Whenever Steve wasn’t sick, picking a fight with a giant or in school with me, we used to play baseball with the other kids in the street. Read, I used to play baseball and tried to teach Steve to just hit the freaking ball with the bat. He missed, every single damn time. And believe it or not, Mr. Super Soldier still misses if we try to make an attempt, but he can throw that shield with enough accuracy to decapitate an alien. How this is possible I still don’t know and I’m starting to think he does it on purpose. 

We played a lot of cards, and with the few cents we had, us kids in the neighbourhood had our own little poker group for the rare occasion we got pocket money. Most of the time we lost, seeing we played together we did an absolute shit job at keeping a poker face, and those other kids, well, they did it on a daily basis so we were easy pickings and left broke more often than not. Unless Steve accused them of cheating and jumped them. Then, well, maybe sometimes we could fight our money back, other times we went home empty handed and with black eyes. 

We hung out in Prospect Park, where we dreamt of being able to afford to go to the menagerie (Now Prospect Park Zoo) and see all the animals we had only ever read about or seen pictures of. My dad actually did manage to take us on one occasion. He apparently got the money for it and took us during the summer for our shared birthday. Sure mine was in March, but I didn’t get a present then because our heater broke so we had to get a new one. The girls were angry they didn’t get to come, but we enjoyed a boys day out. 

Steve and I raced from animal to animal, Dad walking behind us slowly and barely keeping an eye on us. We had hot dogs, and spent the rest of the day in the afternoon throwing ball. George had come to see Steve as a son of his own. At least at the time. I imagine he always wanted more boys, and the miscarriage of George Jr still weighed heavily on him because it wasn’t talked about. He loved my sisters, but a man needed sons back then. He wanted to teach Steve the things he was teaching me. To teach him how to fix little things so he could help his “momma” around the apartment if something broke. He wanted to teach Steve alongside me how to be a man, which was how you did things back then. Sexist, I know. 

But I know for a fact that my dad loved Steve back then, and Steve adored him back with the same level. Even a blind-deaf man could feel that Steve saw my father as his own father figure. I didn’t mind, I wasn’t jealous, I loved sharing my dad like that, and I felt that it gave a whole new depth to the saying ‘being close as brothers.’ To me we were just that, brothers. 

Steve was the best sort of friend a boy could ask for, even if he was an ass who got me in trouble a whole lot. I had a reputation as a kid that behaved, you know. All of that went down the drain when I met Steve Rogers whose fights I finished. He didn’t need me to finish them, so that was all on me. My life was so much more peaceful until I met Steve. 

I wouldn’t give it up for the world, though. 

 

\--

 

Steve has always been an artist. All his life with everything that he could get his hands on, which wasn’t a whole lot back then, but you can be damn sure if he had a scrap of paper that he’d fill it until there was nothing left of it. But he didn’t truly start developing his sense of art until he was about ten years old. 

I’m going to be honest, I don’t know the exact cataclysm behind his sudden devotion to art and the sudden amount of paper he managed to get a hold of. All I know is that suddenly it was all Steve was doing, hunched over his paper with pen in hand, drawing everything he could. When I say everything, I mean  _ everything _ . He once drew two pigeons eating scraps of bread in the park. 

He would draw me, he would draw his mother and he would draw my sisters. He would draw plants and flowers in the park in the spring until he started sneezing and his skin broke out. He would draw random people walking by or sitting by the pub just down his apartment. He would draw the view from his room and he would make attempts at drawing his father based on the one picture of him that he had. 

Now Steve is an amazing artist, if he sits down and takes his time he can put incredibly realistic creations on paper, and those are the ones that are still in exhibits in some museums. Most of those are from his adult years though, or from the notebooks found from during the war. But let me tell you, Steve Rogers may always have been an artist in his soul, but he wasn’t always always an artist. 

I was there for the most part of it, I remember him drawing stick figures and drawing something only to get angry because it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. I would laugh and I would tease him, which only spurred him on to do better. It was sometime along this time when Sarah got Steve classes. How she did it, and how she afforded it, was never on our minds to ask. All I knew was that every Sunday after church (we went to different churches) we couldn’t hang out anymore cause he was off on those art classes of his. 

But I would go to the building where he had classes and usually arrive before he did. I always had a book in hand, either the one I had gotten for myself, 20,000 Leagues all over again or whatever I had picked up from the library. I would just lounge on one of the benches and wait for him to finish class, and then we would hang out the remains of the day. 

He improved. Sure enough, he did. It started with hands, suddenly they didn’t look thrice the size of a normal hand. Next it was the nose, no longer just an awkward line to the right or left. After that it was the eyes, no longer just one being proper, but both matching one another. And so bit by bit, whenever Steve drew me it actually started looking like me. 

I would watch him, hours on end crouched over that bit of paper. Brows furrowed with such an intense focus to get everything right. The soft scratch of his pen against the paper, and the way his shoulders would relax and how he’d lean back moments before he would declare that he was done. 

It was then that I was getting myself roped into something, I could feel it grow in my chest. I didn’t know what it was then, I could feel it grow in my chest. Every damn time I looked at him. 

 

~~*~~

 

Bucky had nearly drifted off to sleep by the time that Steve finished reading the chapter. He barely heard how Steve dropped the papers in his lap behind him. Bucky curled up, pulling the covers more over his shoulder. There was the soft trickle of rain against the bedroom window. 

Rain in Wakanda never lasted long. It would stop before dawn, and dry before breakfast.

Steve was shifting behind him, putting the papers onto his nightstand and fumbling alongside the wall to find the switch for the lamp. The room plummeted into darkness. Bucky could tell by the way the warmth that he was seeing behind his eyelids disappeared and changed into the darkness of a deep lake. The mattress shifted underneath him, and just by hearing Steve’s movements he knew that the other was laying on his side and facing him. But never once did he reach out for him. 

“How was it?” Bucky asked on a low tone, hearing the heavy sigh of Winnie now that the room was dark. A clear sign that it was bedtime and that she could truly allow herself to get comfortable. Roxy, of course, was already sleeping deeply down on the floor by Bucky’s side of the bed. 

“You’re still up?” Steve asked surprised. The mattress shifted again behind Bucky, and he felt Steve come up behind him, draping his warm and heavy body over Bucky’s back and an arm over his waist. There was a shuffle of pillows as Steve adjusted them, brushing his nose over the sensitive skin behind Bucky’s ear as he settled. 

“Mmm.” Bucky hummed, a small smile creeping up on his features. Steve hadn’t wanted to wake him up by cuddling up to him, and now just because had spoken up had Steve moved in for it. He felt the soft touch against the outline of the plates on his arm, and goosebumps broke out in his neck as the arm sent signals to his brain, that of a wonderfully light pressure. A perfect, satisfying sensation of a final piece of a puzzle, sliding into its spot entirely on it’s own. 

“Dozing, you didn’t wake me if that’s what you’re thinking.” Bucky rolled his shoulder a bit, taking Steve’s hand in his own metal one and pulled it tight against his chest. “Did you like it?” Bucky asked again, curious to hear Steve’s opinion on their shared childhood. 

“I did,” Steve whispered softly, growing heavy against Bucky’s back as he relaxed. “I didn’t know you remembered that Christmas. When did that happen?” 

“When we celebrated at Sam’s last year. You looked so happy, so it just, pried loose, I guess. Didn’t think much of it, or polish it until I started writing it.” 

“You’re right, though,” Steve told him. “It was one of the best Christmases in my life. I woke up on the way home, you know? When your dad was carrying me. I was so confused at first. But I was so happy, felt like I had a dad in that moment.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand, a bit at a loss for words and unsure how to fill the silence between them. But he was glad at that moment that he had told his mother. Had he not, they might never have started to share their Christmases, and Steve would year in year out just spend it with his mother. He would have loved that as well, Bucky didn’t doubt that. But he couldn’t imagine spending one without Steve after that, and he was glad that Winnie had decided that every year Sarah was to come over for the holiday. Even after Sarah passed, Steve held up to that tradition. 

Steve sighed in his ear, one of defeat. “And you’re right, I do suck at math.”

Just like that, Steve lifted the silence amongst them, the tension that had started to grow in between them after the mention of a sore and rather depressing topic. Bucky laughed. 


	3. A boys life

“Hey Steve?” Bucky called out in the house, not looking where he walked as he flipped through the journal in his hand. The house was dark. The sun had set a couple of hours prior, with the new moon in the sky it resulted into being pitch black outside. “Steve?” 

Bucky found Steve in their bathroom, brushing his teeth and looking at him with a wide-eyed expression. Bucky snorted, suddenly realising why Steve hadn’t responded to him in the first place. The radio was playing as well, so he deduced that Steve just plain and simple hadn’t heard him. Steve leant over the sink and spat out a mixture of saliva and toothpaste. “What?” Steve asked, his lips still coloured white. 

“How old were you when they discovered your spine was crooked?” Bucky asked. Steve whistled, cast his eyes up to the ceiling as he tried to remember, and Bucky took the moment to admire Steve. He almost regretted his decision to start writing now, when he had Steve standing in front of him in nothing but his boxers. All of his muscles were on display making him look as if he had been carved out of marble, the darker hairs on his abdomen, the happy trail that Bucky loved to nuzzle with his nose. 

“Thirteen, maybe?” Steve guessed with a grimace. “Not sure, think it was thirteen.” He took the bright green coloured glass of the sink, placed it against his lips. “Why?” He asked before taking a sip of it, and rinsing his mouth. 

“Thought I’d write some, so I needed to know,” Bucky admitted with a simple shrug of his shoulders, smiling at Steve as he spat out the water. “Not that tired yet, so I’m gonna stay up a while longer.” 

“See.” Steve grabbed the washcloth and wiped his mouth. “This is what you get for snoozing until three in the afternoon.” He warned him with a lecturing finger, but the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards only proved that Steve wasn’t annoyed at all. 

“Mm, you had already done the goats,” Bucky murmured, sliding in close to Steve and wrapping his arms around the other’s waist. Steve rolled his eyes as Bucky pressed a light kiss to his lips. “It’s very comfortable to just laze in bed all day, you should try it sometime, when you’re not so damn busy pretending you’re a rooster and getting up at the crack of dawn.” 

Steve chuckled, placing an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and kissing him again. And again, and a fourth time for good measure. “Don’t stay up all night alright? Come join me when you’re ready.” 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 3 - A boys life**

 

Over the summer of 1930, Steve was furious with me.

Now I hadn’t disappointed him. I hadn’t turned bully overnight. I hadn’t found a different friend and forgotten all about him. I hadn’t made a remark that set his blood boiling. Steve was furious with me because over that one summer, I grew a foot in height, standing at five foot eight and quite a chunk taller than most boys. Steve remained at his four foot five. 

It didn’t help him that I told him that  _ Hey don’t worry, now you’re closer to the ground like the devil you are! _

I also found out quickly that at five foot eight, that my dick came at perfect height for a four foot five Steve to punch with a vengeance, and that when he did that four foot five still was quite a bit taller than me when I was on the ground. 

I was now more than a head taller than Steve, and he didn’t like that. Not that surprising, he had never been anything else but the shortest in his class, or anything else but the smallest. In fact, at twelve he looked like most boys did when they were eight, and this limited him on nearly everything that he wanted to do. To watch me grow by the day that summer (which my mother was grateful for, during the summer my shorts never seemed too short and she could wait on getting me trousers until the school year started) must have rubbed salt in his wounds. 

No doubt, he was waiting eagerly for puberty as I had been, hoping that it would be his redemption, that he’d grow to some height and not be the smallest anymore. That he would grow into mediocre. Not the tallest, but not the shortest, not the fattest, but not the skinniest, not the most muscular, but not the least either. Puberty back then was just as exciting to look forward to as a kid as it is these days I imagine. 

Except that as a kid you don’t realise how horrible puberty really is. The thing is, in modern age you still consider a teenager a child. Back then being a teenager meant that you were one step away from being an adult. Hell, some teenagers were adults at the age of sixteen. Many of them held jobs and didn’t go to school, went drinking in the underground places that sold alcohol with the money that they earned. 

That was what we were all looking forward to. We wanted to be adults, we wanted to show that we could handle our own in the world, and we wanted to build the lives that we would eventually lead as adults. None of us however really knew the changes that your body would go through. 

We didn’t have sex education, the most we would have would be from the church, telling us not to have sex before marriage and many adults preached this too. You had to rely on your parents and your friends. If you had a father that didn’t feel too awkward having this discussion with you, and truthful friends. Most had neither. 

George was content with just waving me off and saying “Yeah, it does that” if I brought something up and continue doing whatever it was he was doing. So I learned quickly not to talk to them about it. If I spoke to Steve about it, he would just blink at me in confusion so he was no help either (but by lord, did he try even if he had no clue what I was talking about). I had other friends, of course, from school, who were matching me in my race to the sky and puberty. 

The same sort of rumours still went around then as now. The first time I heard a ten year old boy tell his friend that if you jerked off your palms would grow hair, I cackled in the middle of the street. 

Masturbation was a wonderful discovery. It was like hearing angels sing for the first time. While simultaneously accepting that I would never get to go to heaven, because holy crap that felt good. The realisation however, that the chances of doing so were severely limited. I still shared a bedroom with my three sisters in the bunk bed beside me, and we only had cold water in the shower, so that was little fun. 

What? You didn’t think I’d talk about this? A sex drive is only natural and seeing as we’re talking about teenage years when most people discover that touching their dicks or whatever feels pretty damn good, it’s only normal that I mention it. I’ve got a sex drive, got no shame over that fact. 

I’m not going to go into it deeper than that however. Sure, I jerked off as a young kid, still do now. Doesn’t mean you have to know in detail just where and when I’d do that. But let me at least tell you this -- upon my initial discovery, I took the matter into hands at any opportunity that presented itself. Figuratively and literally. I think most boys do. 

Let’s go back to Steve now, instead. He waited, and he waited and he waited for his own growth spurt with such desperation that it was almost sad to watch. I truly felt bad for him, and almost a little bit guilty at getting taller by the day, gangly from it all but filling out slowly. 

Steve did get his growth spurt in the end. From four foot five, he grew into five foot. It wasn’t nearly as much as he hoped for, and he still was the smallest in his class. He was furious and absolutely dejected. It felt like nothing I did would be able to cheer him up. Hell, it seemed like  _ everything _ I did to cheer him up only made it worse. There was a constant, underlying sense of anger about him. 

Somewhere along those five inches that he grew, something happened to him. For a while Steve suffered from nothing else but back aches. Aches of all sort, a dull throbbing pain, sharp stabs of it. He took that as something good, as did I. We both hoped for him that it was growing pains. 

It wasn’t growing pains. At thirteen, his mother discovered that his spine was crooked, and was furious with the school nurse for never reporting it to her or checking it herself. Steve took this deeply to heart, now knowing that the back aches were not what he had hoped for. He found out that it was because his spine wasn’t even straight, and probably robbing him of a bit of height along the way, too. 

Every ailment in the world seemed to grab Steve in its hands, just because it could. He suffered so much. He learned how to deal with them, of course. His mother had to invest in a new bed for him that helped a little, but brought their savings back down to zero. Now occasionally, he would be bed bound with lumbago, missing out on school and his art classes while he was perfectly well otherwise. 

Steve was angry a lot, but he never took it out on me. Even though there were many moments where I wished that he did, just so all that pent up energy would blow out of him once and for all and he’d feel better about it. He needed to release all the frustration that he had gathered over the years. Always being the weirdo, the odd one. All of that needed to be gone. For once he needed to be part of everyone else. 

You’d think that upon finding out about his crooked spine, he’d take it a little bit easier. That he would stop picking fights over every single thing that crossed him and that he thought wasn’t fair. Not at all. He never used his own anger as an excuse to fight. Steve wasn’t like that, he only fought those who deserved it. The people like Eddie Foreman. 

I still pulled people off him. I would do that and will do that till the day I die. But he fought more this time. Now as a teenager the reckless trait that he always had carried within himself had been nurtured enough to shine fully. Rather than thinking what was good for him, he kept putting everyone else before him again. Growing up from a child into a man, he saw a whole new level of dangers in the world for people that he wanted to protect and thus put himself at greater risk. 

Steve got kicked to shit one evening standing up for an old woman getting robbed. Nearly got stabbed with a switchblade for it, I was furious with him. Steve, bless him, was just happy that the woman had made it out alright. He walked her home and everything, then checked on her the next day to see if she needed anything. 

He stopped a fifteen year old girl from being raped by two guys, they broke his nose and a couple of ribs before running off. And her too he walked home to her parents while she was sobbing and a bloody shirt himself. Explained everything to them, and then even apologised for not knowing who the two men were. 

You’re getting the picture, aren’t you? The result of this and me coming in to finish his fights for him also meant that now there was a bigger chance of me getting beat up too. I could fight off kids our own age, sometimes those a couple of years older, if they were alone. But grown men? I couldn’t do that. I tried, but I couldn’t. I might have matched their height, but I hadn’t matched their weight yet. I worked my way through many aches back then. I would do it again if given the option. But I want you all to know that before I went and helped Steve, that I sure as hell sighed and cast my eyes up to the sky.

 

\--

 

Mr Moretti had always been a good man to my family. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, he would eventually be driven into debt. That happened when I was fourteen years old. His generosity to his staff, but also to his customers was eventually what got him there.

He gave advances and money to his staff if they needed it, never once doubting if what they spun was the truth or not. Most of the time it was the truth. He was the sort of man who looked after his staff, who paid their rent when they were behind and never once expected them to return the favor or work overtime. He gave them money when they had unexpected bills or a child in the hospital. He did everything he could, and he did the same for his loyal customers. 

Anyone who had ever been at his shop during the years it had existed, had at one point or another been met his kindness. He gave the elderly who often had little money, more than what they asked and charged them less. Same for the poor and the single mothers with children. He did it often to Sarah, after Winnie had advised her to go there. 

A kinder soul I haven’t known, but this sort of generosity never holds up in the long run. A store still has to make money, and bit by bit it all started piling up for Mr Moretti and he was left with money out of pocket every end of the month. It started with not being able to pay wages, which he felt so guilty about to the point where his stomach would ache as he apologised for his staff. 

They thought nothing of it, of course, after all that Mr Moretti had ever done for them they now did something in return to him. But shit like that snowballs, next thing he had to stop lowballing his prices, which he felt guilty about and of course, it raised the question around the street why Mr Moretti had gotten expensive. He lost some customers over that. Next, he couldn’t pay the delivery for food. So he had less to sell, lost even more customers. Then, some of his staff had to quit. They wanted to help, but they had families to take care of, and they needed money. 

Mr Moretti understood that, of course, and he let them go. Sad to see them go, and they were sad to leave. But nothing could be done about it. Then, he started to fall behind on his rent. Then, he had to close shop, much against his will. He sold off all of his belongings in an attempt to save the shop. His staff had attempted to raise money for him, but they had worked without wages for three months at that point, so there was little that could be done. 

They were all let go, including my mother who had worked in that shop for twenty years. This happened during the Great Depression. She tried to get another job, she truly did. But in twenty years of swinging a sledgehammer to kill pigs, she had done it wrong for all that time. Her shoulder was fucked up, and she couldn’t raise her right arm any higher than chest height anymore. We didn’t have ergonomic work ways back then.

She was too old to start over and be a cashier for another shop, and again, the great depression was on. There was no job for her to be found. Winnie and George sat me down one afternoon when I came back from school, and they told me I wouldn’t be going back. 

I was furious at them. Neither of them had finished school, my father had stopped before High School and my mother never had been. I would be the first in my family to have a High School diploma and I was already in my second year by then. I had ambition. I had decided what I wanted to do with my life and for that I needed to study.  I had begun doing just that. 

Over all my time caring for Steve while he was sick, and watching Sarah do the same, I listened to her talk about her work in the hospital in the TB ward and wanted to do the same. I wanted to become a doctor. I wanted to finish high school and then go to medical school. I knew what I wanted to do at a young age, a luxury few kids had. Here I was being told that my dream wouldn’t become a reality, because I needed to go to work. I needed to make money to help support the family while my mother was out of a job, and she most likely would remain out of a job. 

I could come with George, he said, they didn’t need any extra hands but they had the luxury of being able to take me on. It would do me good, he said, it was about time that I learned a trade off which I could make a living, off which I could one day live on my own, and raise a family on. 

I could have done just the same, if not better by being a doctor, I thought back then. It wasn’t amongst the things that I screamed at them that day. I could do some good as a doctor, I could help people, and not just Steve alone.  Would earn better too. Being a carpenter was not how I imagined my life to be.

The result was that I ran away from home for a short time, if you could even call it running. I turned up with a bag at Sarah’s doorstep, and asked if I could come and spend a few days with them instead. She saw that I was upset, because she let me in and she didn’t ask any questions when I was sniffling and wiping away the tears as I unpacked my bag in Steve’s room and waited for him to come home. 

She never once brought up what got me in such a tizzy, and my parents never came looking for me. In hindsight, I now realise she must have told them that I was fine and staying with her and Steve. She let me stay for a week, let me calm down. 

I told Steve during that week that I wouldn’t be joining him anymore at school, that I had to start working with my dad in order to make money now. He was just as upset at the idea as I was. He made me promise that we’d still see each other. Of course I promised, I told him, I would still walk him to school and home again. I still wanted to be a part of his life. I hoped that over Steve’s shoulders, I could see what he was learning at the time. 

The childish innocence hadn’t left me yet. I thought it would do enough if I just kept up with school through Steve. Never once did it occur to me that I would actually need a diploma to apply to medical school, that I would need actual grades for that. Not to mention that I would have needed to have gone to a fancier school than the one I went to and I would have needed a lot of money in order to pay for it. 

After that first week, Sarah suggested that maybe it was time for me to go home, that I couldn’t stay angry with my parents forever, even if she understood why I was. A little defeated, I packed up my stuff and went home again. My mother never commented on my absence, but she had washed my sheets while I was gone. My father didn’t say anything until we had dinner that evening. There hung a heavy silence over all of us until he spoke. 

“You’re coming with me to work tomorrow. We leave at eight,” he declared, and that was that. There was nothing I could say against it. I couldn’t argue, I couldn't scream anymore. I was angry, but I was defeated and drained at my crushed dreams. So all I said in response was  _ Yeah alright. _

The very next morning I was out of the door at eight with my dad. Waved at Steve on his way to school as we passed one another on the street and went to work with George. I was jealous of him, but George placed a strong hand in my neck and made me look ahead of myself as we walked. He told me that he was proud of me for doing this for the family. For being a man and for helping us all when we needed it the most, and mentioned that Winnie was the proudest of all. 

We stopped that day just in time for school to end. I made it just in time to meet Steve by the gates. He tried to be cheerful about it, asked how my first day at work had been. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to show him my hands which I had hammered on so many times, filled with splinters and little cuts. 

Even Sarah who greeted us by the door smiled at me and tried to cheer me up, telling me how I looked like such a grown up after a day of hard work. I could only smile weakly when she ruffled my hair. 

Winnie had prepared my favorite meal for us when I finally made it home, way past dinner time, expecting to get scolded for it. They didn’t, though. Instead, they had all waited for me. She dished up meatloaf -- it was quite pricey to make back then. 

In my bedroom, I found a gift in brown wrapping paper. Inside it was a book she had gotten for me that day, along with a note confirming what my father had told me. She was proud of me, and understood that having to go to work was something deeply upsetting to me. She hoped that the book would at least brighten my mood a little bit. 

I cried.

 

\--

 

I didn’t expect us to settle into a new routine. Part of overdramatic-and-upset me thought that somehow all my life would fall into shambles because I now had to go to work instead of school. Part of me feared that I would lose touch with Steve and never see him again. That wasn’t true. I did lose some friends sure, but not Steve. To make up for the friends that I lost, I made new ones at work. Kids who never had gone to school and had worked since forever, and the son of one or two other men that my dad worked with. 

The first few weeks I fucked up more than I did good, but near the end I worked as efficiently as the men who had been there for years on end. I built stairs and doors as solid as the rest of them. I stopped hammering my fingers as much, and the bruises faded. I had a couple of black nails that hurt like fuck for a while, but they fell off and others grew in place. I got splinters still, but less. Steve would be the one plucking them out at the end of work when we’d pause on his way home, drinks in hands. His skinny fingers had a much better hold on them than my own clumsy and now thicker fingers did. 

I slept like a rock every day, went to bed earlier and slept better, deep and dreamless often. I’d wake up laying exactly the same as I went to bed. I grew bigger. From working as much, lifting and hammering I started to fill out the gangly body that I had gotten during my foot in growth spurt. Soon my clothes didn’t fit me anymore. Not because they were short by ankles or showing my stomach. But my shirt would be strapped to tightly against my chest and waist, shoulders and arms bulking with muscles now and the same to my pants by my thighs.

In just a short couple of months I had stopped looking like a child and started to look like a young man. Emphasis on being young, because I couldn’t grow a beard but was proud as hell over the little bit of peach fuzz that I had on my cheeks. My mother, however, did not like it at all and kept making me shave it off. My father laughed every damn time he saw it to until he had tears in his eyes, and called me an apricot for my troubles.

I still had Sundays somewhat off. I didn’t have to work, but I still had to go to church in the mornings. The difference was now Steve and I had more money. I didn’t get to keep all my wages from work, most of it went to the family for food or rent or whoever needed new clothes (me included) at the time. That didn’t mean that my parents didn’t understand that I had worked for it. So they gave me a percentage of it. Ten percent of what I earned. 

It wasn’t much, but it was a lot more than I had ever gotten every now and then for pocket money. I earned it every week, too. 

With the economy, it didn’t mean shit though. Everything was expensive in The Depression as the value of money had just dropped down, during the whole week I earned sixteen dollars and eighty cents, which was quite a bit less than my dad made at twenty-eight dollars and thirty-two cents. Sure, he worked an hour longer than I did each day, and due to being a worker who had been there longer he had a higher hourly rate than I did. 

It didn’t bring me down, there was something exhilarating in holding a dollar sixty in my hand that I had worked hard for myself. I used to only get about thirty cents, so it was quite the jump up compared to what I was used to. 

With me working we covered our rent, which was about 45 a month (I know, shocker, right? Compared to what it is now?), and we had it good during a time where a lot of people didn’t have it as well off. Food was expensive, entertainment was even more pricey. It was a stretch certain weeks but we made it. We even still managed to helped Sarah and Steve when they needed it. 

With the money that I was given, I used to buy Steve and myself sodas to drink, occasionally pay for a talking picture if we felt like it. He felt bad about it, said I should be spending my money on myself rather than on him. I didn’t care, I wanted to spend my money with him, do things together. If he couldn’t pay then I would pay for the both of us. In my eyes I had the money for it, so why wouldn’t I pay for him? Why would I pay just for myself and leave him on the curb? No fucking way. 

I never once regretted it, I never once looked back and wished I had spent it all on myself. I would get things for myself, and if there was a particular book I had seen in a shop one day that I needed to save up for, I’d tell Steve I wanted it so we had to do something without money. Then we did for a week or two until I had saved up what I needed. We’d go and get the book together and I would read it out loud in the park while Steve was drawing. 

So a time that I feared would turn out to be terrible, in the end, didn’t turn out to be that bad after all. We settled into our new lives, well, more like my new routine than anything. But Steve had to make changes too. He was on his own at school now, and there were more than a few who weren’t interested in being his friend. He had tried to beat more than half of them up, was the weird skinny looking kid so the girls had no interest in him. The boys didn’t bother being around him, he didn’t keep up, and he had interest in things that they didn’t, such as art. He couldn’t keep up with them during football games, still couldn’t breathe right and looked several years younger than he really was. Even if he had grown an additional two inches to his new frame. 

There were some guys that he used to hang about with, mostly my old friends. I had forcibly introduced Steve into my friendships with those guys, and they had accepted him well enough. But there was no denying that I was the glue that held them together. So with me out of the picture, even they started to drift apart. Life goes like that sometimes, you can’t keep in touch with everyone. Through everything though, I’m glad that Steve and I stayed as close as we did with one another. 

Not that I think the little fucker would have let me go if I pushed him away. He’d just jump his way right back over to me, gangly grasshopper that he was. 

 

\--

 

The problem that came with becoming a teenager who had discovered masturbation was, of course, the very foundation of that desire and what it actually meant. When you get your first boner, you don’t really need much to get going. One small touch and you can be ready to go. Sometimes in the most awkward of moments, sometimes in the most perfect moments when you’re all alone, and sometimes in moments that leave you puzzling what sets it off in the first place. 

That took me a little while to figure out, just what my preferences were. At fourteen, I thought that I knew everything. And looking back doesn’t everyone think they know everything back then? It’s only when you’re an adult and you look back on your stupid actions and your stupid thoughts that you realise that you were incredibly wrong. 

I will admit that I was horny a lot, and fantasizing wasn’t exactly something that I did at first. I just focused on the feeling of it all which usually did the trick for me. During the breaks at work, I used to sit with the other kids. I wasn’t the youngest, that was a kid of ten, but most of them were in their teens and my age, usually a bit older up to the age of sixteen. 

So every now and then one of the older ones would bring a naughty picture book along. You know the ones, small comics that would fit in the palm of your hand with little drawings in them of naked ladies and people having sex. Focusing a lot on the ladies and their assets. 

One of the guys, a kid named Glenn, had just gotten his hands on another one. Stolen it from his dad he said for his own collection. Naturally thinking with one part of his body and it wasn’t his brain, he brought it to work to show it off. The picture book made its round through us all, until it eventually ended in my hands. 

I flicked it through, curious of course. I had never seen a naked lady before, and you sure as hell didn’t see them in the movies. So yes, I wondered. I knew that there was supposed to be something irresistible about naked girls for boys. Why else would they all obsess over them? Why else would little comics such as these exist? I wanted to know the mystery behind it. 

Because one day (I didn’t know how back then, but that was a problem for a different day) I would have a girl of my own. One day I would be married and I would have children of my own. I wanted children, I wanted a big family with someone that I loved. I knew there was more to women than just mothers. That there was something to be desired about them. And maybe, just maybe that picture book would tell me why. 

Picture books back then weren’t a lot different from today’s porn. Sure there are many new elements in porn, and what we had back then would be considered pretty vanilla to today’s standard, though we had some pretty weird shit too. As I flicked through it on my own, the other guys at work laughing about it and talking about the pictures and getting excited about it, one of them talking of how he wanted to do that to his girlfriend and I…

I felt nothing. 

To me it was just pictures. There was absolutely nothing in any of them that even seemed remotely exciting, or something I even wanted to do with girls to begin with. I didn’t feel the need to have a girl’s mouth around my dick. I didn’t feel the need to bend her over a desk and take her from behind, or have my hands full of her breasts, which seemed to fascinate the other boys the most. So I closed it, smiled to them and handed it to the next one. 

I didn’t say anything for the rest of lunch time, just ate my sandwiches and drank my water. They never even noticed my silence, all wrapped up in their own dreams and fantasies of what they wanted to do to girls and women. I wanted to do none of them. 

Wasn’t worried about that though. I figured that not everyone got the appeal of women at first. After all there is a very thin line with not wanting to have anything to do with girls as a young boy to suddenly wanting to have everything to do with them as you got older. I figured that I hadn’t crossed that line yet and I would eventually. 

That didn’t turn out to be the case. 

I kept that little moment at work to myself. Dad didn’t have to know, my mother certainly didn’t. And Steve and I… we had never even touched on that subject together. I didn’t know if he had even seen a picture book, and some part of me was to embarrassed to even ask if he had seen one. Sex was still a bit of a forbidden topic, it depended on who you were with. Some part of me felt that it wasn’t right to bring it up with Steve. 

Now Steve had in the past few months also grown, also started to become the adult man that he was supposed to be. He was taller now, and still gangly but had started to broaden. That didn’t mean he had filled out yet. But the hamster cheeks he had were starting to melt away and get replaced by sharper features. He didn’t look as much like a child anymore, and he started to look beautiful. 

One day that hit me out of the blue.

I don’t remember what we were doing, but I remember sitting on his bed watching him as he was getting changed for something. We were talking and he stood there without a shirt. I became overwhelmed with the sudden want to touch his spine, drag my fingers up the faint hint of muscles and see if he would break out in goosebumps. Then he took the bottle that he had and drank. He licked his lips after and looked stunning. 

It hit me like a bag of bricks when I watched him do that. That while I didn’t want the mouth of a girl around my dick, I wanted those lips around me. And in the very same instant as that realisation hit me, came a second one. That I very much wanted to be down on my knees like that picture book had shown, down in front of Steve and have him in my own mouth. 

Many things happened in that one moment which would change my life forever. The first thing I realised was that I was gay. The second was that I had skipped the phase of a crush, and had fallen straight down into the abyss -- I was in love with my best friend. 

 

~~*~~

 

“Are you still up?” Steve’s voice echoed through the kitchen. Bucky looked up from the screen to Steve, standing in the doorway in the very same outfit that he had last seen him in. Just a pair of boxers. His eyes were burning like someone had tied barbed wire around them and he looked up to the digital clock hanging beside the refrigerator. 06:49.

“Holy crap,” Bucky muttered, then to the same clock at the bottom right of his laptop to confirm it. As if the digital one hanging up on the wall would be lying to him. It wasn’t; his laptop said the same. He stretched out his arms and gave Steve a sheepish smile. “Seems like I am.” 

“Were you up all night?” Steve asked in disbelief as he came up beside Bucky, looking down to the laptop. He placed a heavy hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed the muscles and god, that felt good. Bucky closed his eyes and leaned his head against Steve’s arm, reaching up to take it. 

“Yeah apparently. Couldn’t stop. Was just finishing though so I was going to go to bed now.” Bucky opened his eyes and looked up to Steve, who looked down at him, disapproving of having been up all night. Bucky flashed him the same sheepish smile again and watched how it faded away. 

In the end Steve sighed, leant down and kissed him on the top of his head. “You didn’t notice the sun was coming up?” He teased, letting his hand drop from Bucky’s shoulder and went over to the fridge. 

“No.” Bucky moved the cursor on the screen and pressed the icon to save his chapter. And then he saved it again under a different name. “Swear, I was wrapped into this. Finished the chapter though. Want to read it?” He asked, looking over his shoulder to Steve, only to see him drink juice from the package. “Steve,” He whined. 

“I’d love to read it.” Steve put the package back in the fridge. “You have to go to bed though.” 

“Gee,  _ Dad _ , I’m gonna,” Bucky scoffed and got up from the kitchen chair, walked up to Steve and turned him around. “Hi.” He snuck his arms around Steve’s waist and pressed a light kiss to his lips. 

“Hi,” Steve smirked, draping his arm around Bucky’s shoulder. 

“I’m going to go out and feed the goats,” Bucky declared. “Then, cause I haven’t eaten all night, I’m going to make myself some breakfast. And  _ then  _ I will go to bed. You want any?” He offered, hoping that Steve would accept it. If Bucky had the chance to cook for Steve then at least he could be certain that Steve had a proper breakfast, and not just some burnt toast with butter spread on it. 

“Sure.” Steve gave him a small peck, let his arm drop off Bucky. “Can I read it meantime?” He nodded over to the laptop, curiosity sparkling in his eyes as they darted back to Bucky. 

“Knock yourself out, bun.” Bucky dismissed Steve to it, and went out through the glass door to their backyard. 

“Say hi to Clint and the others for me!” Steve called for him just as he was settling into the chair. Bucky laughed and went out to feed the goats. He spent a good twenty minutes giving them all their breakfast, greeting each and every one of them and coaxed Clint back down from their little shed. He had named all of the goats after Steve’s teammates and proceeded to keep it a secret who was who. Clint with his love for high places had been obvious, however, and the first and only goat that Steve had guessed correctly. 

Next he went over to his greenhouse, checking over his plants quickly and watered those who needed watering. As last, he went and fed the chickens and wandered in with two handfuls of freshly laid eggs. Winnie had woken up and relocated to the kitchen, but still sleepy, she had settled on the floor beside the still-reading Steve and thumped her golden tail against the kitchen tiles when she saw Bucky. 

Dedicating a moment to say good morning to the dog, he had to add another one as Roxy wandered into the kitchen and demanded one as well. Steve kept reading.

He made them some eggs as he did most morning, using the two eggs that they hadn’t finished from yesterday and nearly all from this morning’s harvest. Some bacon and sausages for Steve. All while cutting up some melon and a kiwi for himself. He gave Steve the largest portion of eggs, and all the bacon and sausages. Fo himself, he settled with just a bit of eggs and the fruit he had cut. 

Steve was still reading as Bucky ate, eating too, but at a slower pace. Distracted as his words dashed over the lines. Bucky watched him, keeping an eye out for the little hints of amusement, the downward frown whenever he read something that must have upset him. The roll of his eyes and the occasional raise of his eyebrows. Bucky could tell that Steve had finished reading by snorting, looking mischievous all of a sudden as he leant back in the chair, taking his breakfast plate with him. 

“Is that when you ran out on me?” Steve asked, squinting out of amusement and pointed to the screen with his fork. 

“Huh?”

“When you realised you loved me, is that when you ran out on me? I remember that. All of a sudden you got all red, started bumbling on about having to go and stuttered before racing out through the door.” Steve snorted again, shoveling some eggs into his mouth. 

Bucky, determined to keep his dignity, tried to shrug as if it was no big deal. “Maybe,” He hinted, looking up to Steve. He looked far too pleased with himself. 

“You know.” Steve shifted again in his chair, frowning a little bit and pointed to the computer screen again with his fork before poking a sausage with it. “If you had asked me back then, I probably would have let you suck me off.”


	4. The inside of a closet

“I got you something,” Steve smirked, dropping himself down in the couch beside Bucky. His heavy weight was enough to make him bounce a little, disrupting Bucky in reading his book rather rudely. He whined and looked to Steve, who was so proud of himself and held up  a package wrapped perfectly in green paper with reindeer on it. 

Bucky snorted at the sight of it, knowing full and well that Steve had taken the only wrapping paper that they had in the house and used it in the middle of February, but Bucky accepted it nonetheless and kissed Steve on his cheek. “Thanks. What’s the occasion? Did I miss something?” He asked, searching Steve’s eyes for a hint that he had forgotten something.

“Open it.” Was all that Steve told him, resting up his arm against the back of the couch and his head in his hand. Bucky put his bookmark where he had left off, and put the book down beside him before searching the paper for an easy way to open it. 

Steve had gotten him a new leather journal, with a little leather rope that he could tie around it to keep it shut. He smiled down at it. “Thank you.” Then he looked at Steve with his eyebrows raised, waiting for the explanation that followed. 

“I’ve seen you write in all your journals, leave ‘em scattered around the house about your new book and all. But all those journals have already been written for other things. You wander around cursin’ trying to find the one where you jotted down that one note. So I figured I’d get you a new journal just for your book. So when you find something in the other journals, you can just write it down in here, and never have to doubt which journal you wrote your little memo down in,” Steve explained, tapping the journal with his finger. 

“Steve.” Bucky looked at him, watched Steve make his terrible attempt at winking. “Thank you,” he repeated again, voice softer now, touched with the consideration behind the gift. Steve leant in to kiss him on his cheek. 

“Anytime Buck. Your book is going to turn out great.”

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 4 - The inside of a closet**

 

Now before we truly start this story, I want to tell you all a little sidestory. It’ll be relevant, don’t you worry, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought it up to begin with. This is a little story to explain where I’m coming from, and to make anyone who reads this understands what it was like to be gay back then. 

Before I worked with my father, there was a man in their group named Frank. I had met him a handful of times, and he was always curious to hear how I was doing. He was very friendly. Very kind, which could be a rare amongst the people he worked with. So yeah, he stuck out a little bit, but everybody liked him. 

One day Frank didn’t turn up for work, and nobody really questioned why. Later that day it was revealed that Frank had been murdered. I asked why, not really expecting an answer, people were getting murdered everywhere for nothing at all, so I didn’t expect my mother to actually give me an answer. 

“Frank liked the company of men, dear.”

Now I was about eight years old at the time, so the company of men just sounded to me like he had male friends. My confusion obvious, she explained to me that Frank had enjoyed the company of men in the sense of a husband and wife relationship.

I remember the next thing she did very vividly. As she was eating her soup, she glanced over at my father, and she said “They just did something about that.”

To this day I still don’t know if my father was involved in the murder of Frank, or if it was the other men that murdered him. But that stuck with me, I didn’t forget that. I loved my father still, and the possibility that he might have had the hand in harming someone and taking their life slipped my mind pretty much entirely. I was young, and for as far as I was concerned my father had already murdered people during his time in the war. I loved him.

Did I understand that what they did was wrong? I did. But I was a child, and they don’t hold grudges or distrust in the same way. Sometimes they do, but I know I didn’t. 

So naturally, upon realising that I was gay just like Frank, and that I was in love with Steve was something that set fear in me. In one quick flash I realised that there were people out there who disapproved of it, who found that a man loving another man was unnatural. Hell, I even found it myself a bit. It was all the preaching I had heard as a young boy. 

And here I was, suddenly a gay kid like Frank and I was  _ terrified _ . I was terrified that the kids I worked with would know. That they had figured it out from my disinterest at the picture book that they had brought along and that they too would murder me. That my father would cast me out, hurt me. That my mother would look at me disappointed, and then just look away from me. And in that same bang, I became terrified that I would never have someone to love. Because why would Steve feel the same?

I couldn’t sleep for about a week after realising that. There was a tremble in my hands that I couldn’t seem to ease and I worried so much that my stomach even thought I was being ridiculous and started cramping. I worried so damn much it made me sick. My mother was worried I had caught something nasty, and Steve was worried he had given me something considering he always had one illness after the other. 

It was nothing like that at all. I just had the foundations of all that I ever had known just shake me all over. Making me grow confused about myself. Leaving me terrified for my adult life that awaited me. I started seeing dilemmas everywhere. I started to think of how I’d have to hide such a crucial part of myself and how to go about it. Who knew and who didn’t know and how to deal with that. How to take that part of myself and lock it away. I couldn’t live out my days all on my own, people would talk at that. Or at least I thought so. 

People wouldn’t have, they would have seen me as an eternal bachelor who just chose to be alone. That would have been that, nothing wrong with that. But for someone so young and so filled with worry that wasn’t the logical conclusion that my mind took of course. 

And then there was the fact of wife and children, it was so expected, so normal. It was the natural way of life and you started with that most of the time in your twenties. Sure, some people waited and didn’t get started until their late thirties before they got married and had children. But those people were rare, and generally considered to be oddities for doing so. 

Children would be the ultimate proof that I wasn’t gay. A wife would be the proof that I wasn’t gay. And I started to wonder if I could do that to myself. To live up with such a front. So I did.

And then there was the matter of Frank, murdered by people that he must have trusted at least once. Who he had confided in. And the result of that? Being dragged into some alley and got beaten to death. It was a fate that I was facing if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t want to die, I never wanted to die. 

Now, you’re not going to hear me say that this doesn’t happen anymore. It still does, it’s still as wrong as it was those days. But it doesn’t happen as  _ often _ as it did back then. If the word got out that someone was gay, they would wind up murdered. Every now and then you heard mentions about it, every now and then I’d hear of someone through the grapevine that had died at the hands of others. And that was just people that I happened to know or to know of. 

I wasn’t even in the gay underground culture, and I’m sure that they would be able to tell you tales by far much more gruesome than what I ever heard through gossip at work. The totalling number is probably much larger. This was a time where the police would send good looking men down in the hidden gay bars, and arrest a man if they suggested going home together. 

Gay people were called child molestors, they weren’t allowed to work in certain places and they would be denied to be  _ served _ drinks in bars, because they could lose their liquor license. They were considered a threat and got arrested for the slightest thing. There were raids, they were harassed and personal lives and reputations were ruined if it ever got out amongst straight folks that they also or only preferred the company of the opposite sex. 

I had plenty of reason to be afraid. 

 

\--

 

This next part of the story is the one that I write with the most shame. Yes, even more shame than what I write about in chapter 10 of what I did under HYDRA’s control (I know you checked the index, it’s what all of you were waiting for to begin with). The difference is that I don’t feel any shame anymore of what I did under HYDRA’s control because it wasn’t my choice or my decision. I did, but not anymore. I was controlled then, and given no choice. What I did to women during my youth is something I chose to do. 

Not with ill intent. I never wanted to hurt any of them, and I’m sorry that it happened in the first place. I truly, never once wanted to hurt them on purpose, but I did through my actions. It doesn’t condone what I did, and the fact that I was scared, which motivated my actions, doesn’t justify it either. 

No matter what fate I feared, it wasn’t right. But I did it, and now I am owing up to that. All I wish is that the women I will mention here, and others that I can’t remember, or have forgotten entirely will one day forgive me. I don’t deserve it, and if they don’t then, I understand and accept that. 

On with the story. 

Yeah you know, I had just realised I was gay and ridiculously in love with my best friend. Skinny little grasshopper named Steve Rogers. I ran out on him, something that Steve happily reminded me of when he read the previous chapter. I actually avoided him for a little while after that, which was by far a lot harder than it seems because he was a sneaky little shit turning up unannounced at all possible times, and _ of course _ my mother let him in. He was her second son after all. 

Steve knew something was wrong when I didn’t turn up for a few days to walk him home. And then being as fidgety and nervous and shaky and _sick,_ I worried him. That turned him into glue. He didn’t leave my side anymore, which was torture and simultaneously the sweetest thing he’d ever done for me in his entire life. 

I debated for a moment to tell him, tried to come to terms with myself and just tell myself that I needed to share this little secret with Steve. And maybe, just  _ maybe,  _ he would feel the same and there would be some horrible cliche story and us two running away together from New York and settling in a cabin in the woods away from society in freaking Canada or Alaska or some shit. 

Instead, what I did go out and do was this: I went and found my first girlfriend. 

It’s hard to write this next bit without sounding vain but I was a handsome kid, and I was a handsome adult. And fuck it, I’m still handsome now. I looked damn good and I knew it then and I know it now. I’m allowed to be vain. I didn’t have a whole lot of trouble finding my first girlfriend. 

Rosa was an Italian girl who lived a bit further up the street from me. Her family owned a grocers and she worked there. She was my age, fourteen years old, and considering I was often told to go and run errands for mom, I found myself there a lot. I didn’t have much of a clue on how you flirted, how you were smooth and I’m sure that I sounded like a bumbling fool by the way that her older brother was snorting behind the counter whenever I spoke to her. But I had pretty features. 

Something I did must have worked, because she agreed to go out with me. So either I wasn’t talking as much crap as I felt I was, or my pretty features worked favors with her. I had no clue what to do for this date that I had suddenly roped myself into, and frankly,  it felt like I dunked myself in a tub of ice cold water. 

There was a different sort of panic then, not knowing what to do. My mother found it adorable and just suggested that I’d take her to the pictures and buy her some popcorn or something. I settled with that. 

I couldn’t wait to tell Steve, however, that I had found myself a girl. Telling Steve worked like magic. The weight that had been on my shoulders just disintegrated into nothing. I still loved Steve, more than anything. I had by far much more interest about having my lips around his cock then against Rosa’s lips. I felt safe again, though. I felt safe hanging out with Steve because  _ how could I possibly be interested of him if I was seeing Rosa? _

Stupid as I was, I felt that I had it all covered. My secret was hidden and I could live an entire life in peace and not have a single soul know. 

The date with Rosa in the pictures, however, was the most awkward date I’ve ever sat through in my entire life. I wasn’t sure if I was meant take her hand or not, and when I dared myself to do it she pulled away. I paid for the popcorn like my mother had suggested, but it seemed like she had been expecting that and it didn’t gain me any favors. When we walked back after the movie I didn’t know what to talk about, so I mostly shuffled along her in silence.    


When we finally reached the shop she lived above, she suddenly got angry with me because I hadn’t kissed her? I got so confused, I wasn’t allowed to hold her hand during the movie but now I was supposed to kiss her? So I did, and only got shoved off with her screaming at me _well_ _not now anymore you idiot!_

It goes without saying that Rosa and I didn’t go out with one another for a good couple of years after that. Not until we were in our twenties.

My father laughed when I told the story back home. He laughed until he had tears in his eyes, and even my mother found it funny but at least she had the dignity not to laugh at me. I could tell that she wanted to, though. 

But going out with Rosa, even if just was for one terrible movie, had settled me. It had brought the inner turmoil at ease in my chest. Now there was little room for the rest of the world to doubt.  Bucky Barnes couldn’t be a faggot, he had gone out with Rosa De Luca only last week, and he’d even tried to kiss her. 

 

\--

 

Rosa was the first but not the last girl that I went out with. I didn’t go out with anyone for a couple of months. There was no rush I thought. Truth was the second girl I went out with, was a blind date out of solidarity. A guy from work finally got a girl to agree to go out with him, only if her sister could come along. He had to find someone for the sister. He asked me in front of everyone else at work and left me in no position to say no. So I went. 

This time around, I didn’t get a shove to my chest. I spent most of my time watching my friend, who unlike me, had a solid idea of what to say to girls and how to get them to laugh and how to make them smile. Let them have a good time. I took notes, because I realised that Rosa De Luca couldn’t stay the only girl that I had ever gone out with. I had to actually seem interested in order to make sure that they didn’t start to talk amongst themselves. 

We went dancing together, and that was actually rather fun. I enjoyed it even if I wasn’t too good at it. The girl he set me up with had fun teaching me the basic steps, she laughed a whole lot that evening. Near the end she asked if I wanted to see her again, maybe we could go dancing again. Maude and I had fun, so I said yes. I’d love to go dancing again with her. 

It was a rather sweet time we had with one another. Innocent in the sense that at first all we did was actually dance and have fun with one another. She taught me the right moves for it, a wide variety of dances, and she did have a wonderful laugh. She was fun. After we had our second evening with one another, and shared our first kiss, I stopped seeing her. 

I did this a number of times, with a number of girls. Not all after the first kiss, it would have been suspicious if I broke up with all of them after the one and only kiss we shared. So in time things got taken further than just that. Several kisses, me being allowed a hand in their shirt against their breasts, and who was I to say no to that? How on earth was I going to say “No, thank you” to every girl who offered, who wanted my hand on their chest? Who wanted my hand in between their legs and who wanted to shove me against a wall and go down on their knees and blow me?

It’s not like I didn’t get enjoyment out of it, I came when that happened. A mouth is a mouth, though I had to fantasize which made me feel guilty on a number of levels. Here was a girl who wanted to please me, and I was maybe thinking about their older brother. Or Steve, who slipped into my thoughts like he always had belonged there. I felt guilty thinking about men, which I was trying so hard not to do. And I felt guilty for not being able to return the same level of enthusiasm and enjoyment to the girl. That my thoughts didn’t even stay with them in the first place.

It didn’t stay with blowjobs, of course.

I slept with some of the girls. Not all, just some. Those who wanted to sleep with me. And with those who I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I had to keep up appearances. To make matters worse, I know I was the first guy for some of those girls. I never forced sex on them, or suggested that we sleep with one another. If something I was probably the only guy in Brooklyn at the time going out with ladies and let them set the pace entirely, I never once made demands. So I like to think that I never  _ took  _ anyone’s virginity, but that I was  _ given  _ many, that the girls chose me. 

I was an ass with that gift. I accepted it, I slept with them. I tried to make it good for them even if I struggled finding enjoyment in it myself. I would leave them. Give them some shitty speech how the problem was me and left, just after they had given me a gift that was worth so much for them. I took it, and then discarded it like it was nothing. 

So, so many of them were angry with me, righteously so. I tried to do good in a twisted way though, I tried to always end it before they got too emotionally invested in me, so they wouldn’t be upset by the break up. Sometimes I did this in time, sometimes I didn’t and then there were tears combined with fury. 

George loved it, of course. I was everything he thought that a young man should be. When I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, wrapped up in all these romances and a new girl every other month? That to him was the ideal idea of how a man should act. He was proud of me, and would often laugh and encourage me. Give me that smack on my back when he asked if I was still seeing Loretta or Edith or Myrtle and being happy whenever I told him that no, I wasn’t. 

What was by far worse was the disappointment I saw in my mother. Winnie had always tried to raise me to respect women. In my life women would come to do a lot for me, and she knew that and wanted to raise me to be a good man for those women. Especially for the woman I would eventually marry. To make me a good man for the daughters I would eventually have. She realised that my behaviour upset many of the girls that I was with. 

I couldn’t relate to the losses and hurt that these girls went through as I worked my way through them, but she, as a woman, could. She understood the stupid, ridiculous imagined value that decreased with them because they had taken the wrong man to bed who hadn't stayed with them. Who understood the trust and love and devotion a girl could give to a guy, especially her first love and all the gifts she could give. And she understood the pain upon realising that those gifts while appreciated at the time, meant nothing the second I turned my back on them. 

So she became thin lipped whenever George steered the conversation towards my girlfriends. She never said a word, but stared down to the table rather than put her disapproving gaze on me. Almost as if she knew that it would make me sink through the floor with shame. All my mother had to say about me and women was “Just don’t leave them, if you get them pregnant,” and she would leave the table. George waving her off as she went to sit down by my sisters, now becoming teenage girls themselves. Almost as if she wanted to show them, to tell them not to be with a man like their brother. 

I disappointed my mother with how I acted, and that’s a shame I still carry with me to this day. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted to tell her that I was scared. But I couldn’t. 

 

\--

 

Through all of this. Steve’s presence remained constant. 

With every damn girl I had by my side, no matter how much he disapproved (and I know he did), he was still there. He was still a good student, but remained a terrible fighter and still fought everyone who deserved it. Steve was angry during his teens for a multitude of reasons. Frustration at still being so small and weak, frustrated for still getting sick at every damn thing, frustrated at the world for the way it treated people  in it’s unfairness. 

And through it all I loved him still, with all my fucking heart. 

No amount of skirtchasing ever changed that. I’m not going to lie, there were other men in town that I felt ridiculously attracted to. Other men that I dreamt of sleeping with. Men I wished I could kiss the faint traces of cotton candy off their lips, whose muscles I wanted to feel under my hands and who I wanted them to shove their hand down my into my pants. I never once did any of that. 

Steve was the only one that I looked at with something more than desire. Steve was someone that I held close, that I loved and that I wanted to protect. Who I wanted to kiss, while I feeling every inch of his body and whose brains I wanted to fuck out. Who I wanted to sleep beside me, soft and gentle in a warm summer afternoon. Who I wanted to just cradle at night and whisper to him how much he meant to me. 

Who I wanted to read to with his head in my lap, stroke my fingers through his hair and watch him draw. Who would look up to me every now and then and smile beautifully, mysteriously, happily and at times even a little sad. Who would then laugh when I’d smile to him in return, shake his head and continue drawing. 

Such a gentle soul and just as filled with just as much fire as kindness. Beautiful blue eyes with just that little touch of green, the short blonde hair that shone like gold under the right light. Who the fuck am I kidding, you all know how Steve looks. Many of you knew how he looked before he got into Howard Stark’s fucked-up refrigerator and injected himself with a serum that he didn’t even know what it would do to him. His picture was plastered all over the newspaper when he woke up from the ice. 

My point is, Steve was fucking beautiful even back then. He was stupid, an asshole who fought everything with a mouth too large, but he was fucking wonderful, beautiful and such an amazingly considerate person. I’ve never met anyone else like him. But that’s okay. He’s here with me now, he’s in his studio and claims to be painting. But I can hear Winnie’s tail thump against the floor as I’m writing this, which means they’re playing with one another. 

Through the mess that was my life, through every girl that I went through, and me trying to figure out who I was, and what parts to take of myself and actually show to the world and which ones to hide forever -- through all of that, Steve was there. Sometimes aware of what was going through my head, sometimes not aware at all, and sometimes knowing there was something but not asking, because it was my matter and not his. 

We continued our lives as we always did. He went to school, he showed me his homework and I solved it with him. Trying desperately to give myself an education through him. He hung around town waiting for me to get out of work when I worked longer shifts, and after that, I still walked him home. We’d get sodas like always and just talk about what we had heard during the day. Steve was invested in what I heard at work, and I wanted to know what was happening to the folks I once went to school with. 

We went to the pictures still, and every so often I’d have to grab Steve and tug him back down rather than have him sneak out into an alley just to get his ass kicked. There were times when I wasn’t there to stop him from doing something stupid, so I either had to set out and find him, or come and pick him up from the dirt. 

We’d still go to the park, Steve would draw and I would lean against a tree and read out loud for him from whatever book I had in my hands. Sometimes I wouldn’t be reading at all, and just watching the arborists work while trimming branches and the trees, watching the gardeners shape the bushes and look after the plants, and wish that I could do that for a career instead. 

We went about to Coney Island in the summers if I managed to save up enough money for it. I made Steve puke riding the Cyclone. I was laughing at him in hysterics just to cover up the fact that I had discovered a very recent but a very real fear of heights. During the time Steve was sick, he wasn’t able to see just how badly my hands were shaking. 

I took him dancing with whichever girl that I was with. It was something I enjoyed doing so immensely, that I had so much joy in, that I wanted to share it with Steve. We couldn’t dance with one another but we could dance side by side. Unfortunately, that never happened. Steve had two left feet and was too worried about stepping on someone’s toes to actually do it. Back then the dances would go by so fast that he often found himself short of breath and staying that way cause of his asthma. I ended up walking him back many times, despite him telling me that he’d be fine and that I should go back to my date instead. 

I didn’t care about my dates, and wanted to make sure that Steve made it back home to his mother or at least to his apartment. I’d stay with him until it eased, some nights I would spend the night on the floor. Some nights I’d tell him I’d go back out to the girl if she was still there, and if not I’d just continue dancing with someone else. I never did, I went home and went to bed instead. 

I brought Steve along because I hoped that if I couldn’t have him, that I at least could help him come out and meet new people. Maybe meet a girl. Eventually feel that same sort of love for someone as I felt for him, but that he would have the luck and be able to express that love. That he would be able to have the joy of kissing someone that he wanted to kiss. I hoped that by me dragging him out dancing, there would be someone out there who saw Steve in the same way as I did. 

(Remember this, because we’ll come back to this in a later chapter. I think it’s rather funny actually now in hindsight.)

Beautiful and kind and wonderful. Who would look past that he was short for a guy, and many times even shorter than girls when they wore heels. Who would look past all his variety of illnesses, his asthma, his crooked spine, that he’d get ill every other month. Who would look at him and see that fire, see that he was beautiful. See this person that embodied such a passion for art and life. For justice, who would never harm anyone and stand up for a total stranger. 

Someone who would see Steve for the person he was, someone who was so ahead of his time in so many ways, and who would change their lives forever by just being in their presence. Who would make you feel loved and who would make you feel like you mattered. Make you feel valued. Who would see just you, who would see all the tiny little details that you never thought people noticed and he would put them on paper for you. Who would warm your heart with the idea that  _ he _ had seen just  _ you _ . 

I never knew that when I was reading and I was reaching an intense part in a book, that i’d furrow my brows and that I’d bring my thumb up to my lips, almost as if I’d bite it, until I saw that in a drawing that Steve made. I never knew that when I picked up drinks, no matter the shape of the glass my pinky would stand out as if I was an aristocratic lady, until he drew that. I didn’t know that when I sat outside on the fire escape and smoked, that I always would lean against the same three bars and lift my foot up on the same damn step every single time. 

My mother never knew she’d press the charm on her necklace that George had given to her, on her lips as well when she was cooking until he pointed it out. Maybe that’s where I got the habit from. George never noticed how he would always pout if mom cooked something with cabbages for dinner when he came home. Steve was the first one to notice when Becca got her first crush, turning bright red when he pointed it out and made her sputter to her defence. All Steve had to do was to say that she just sighed, and tilted her head a bit to the side and would smile the smallest smile whenever she saw him. It was Steve who was the first one to figure out that she was smiling at Georgie Brooks, who was just as in love with my sister as she was. 

Steve was the one who could tell the twins apart on the days that they dressed the same to fuck with the rest of the world. He would always greet them right and they would get so angry and demand he tell what gave them away. He would never tell them, and didn’t even share the secret with me. Steve was the one who knew before everyone else that Doris was pregnant at sixteen. He was the one who could tell that Margaret was planning to move to Los Angeles to become an actress in secret.

Not to mention Sarah. He could read his mother like an open book and knew exactly what mood she was in with just one look. He would see her sad and go out in an attempt to get her flowers to cheer her up. He could tell the difference what sort of sad it was, if all that she needed was a story or a joke, then that would be what he would give her. 

Steve saw people for who they were, he still does. He believes that at their core, everybody is good and everybody is pure. It’s just that the circumstances of one's life can sometimes set you on a path that isn’t right. You deserve a second chance, and a third, and a fourth. Everyone deserves a chance at redemption.

It made me wonder, if he could see that much of me that I wasn’t even aware of. See that much in others, that he could look at me and know that I loved him? Or was that something that he never saw, something that I had managed to bury as deep within me as I had hoped. 

 

~~*~~

 

“Go on. Fetch!” Bucky tossed the tennis ball in the pool. Winnie, not surprisingly, dashed to catch it and with one jump launched herself in the water after it. Roxy raced to the edge of the pool before coming to a hesitant halt. Tapped a few times with her front paws before attempting a jump. She barely made it in the water, dropping in it more like the brick that she was. By then, Winnie had already caught the tennis ball and was swimming back to Bucky. 

Leaving Roxy to do a circle in the water and try to climb back out of the pool. She failed, and looked up to Bucky with a pathetic whine. Winnie got out with the same amount of ease as she had gotten in and started shaking out the water. 

“God, you’re a piece of work,” Bucky muttered, amused to himself, going to the edge of the pool and helping his dog out of the water. Roxy flailed as he helped her up, and then shook out the water from her own much shorter and darker fur, looking up to Bucky all pleased. Winnie came up to the pair of them, still dripping and dropped the tennis ball down, wagging her tail. 

“Alright, I’m getting there.” Bucky sat down, dipping his legs in the cool water and picked up the ball. “You ready?” He put his arm around Roxy who sat down, seemingly pleased at not having to chase the ball anymore and leaned against his side. Winnie let out a whine, her eyes fixed on the tennis ball and following every single movement that his hand even dared to twitch. 

“Go on then!” He encouraged, tossing the ball back into the water. Winnie launched and landed in the water with a splash. “S’not for you is it?” Bucky muttered to Roxy, scratching her on the top of her head. She looked up to him, panting from the play and then licked his cheek. The sun was tingling on his skin, working an even deeper tan into his already golden skin. 

The ball bobbed in the water as Winnie tried to catch it, and Bucky looked over his shoulder to Steve laying out in the shade in a lawn chair with the bundle of printed papers in his hands. Bucky looked back at Winnie, who was now swimming around in the pool with the yellow tennis ball in her mouth. One of the goats screamed at them from the pen. Bucky chortled in amusement when he saw them all lined up by the fence watching her. 

“It was Maggie who gave it away,” Steve called out all of a sudden, dropping the bundle of papers in his lap. Bucky looked back to him, still petting Roxy’s side as he waited for Steve to continue. “Whenever they dressed alike to confuse the world. Maggie gave it away. She would get this smug look as if,  _ this time I’ll get you _ , and would try real hard not to smile. I always saw her cheek twitching. She did the same whenever she tried not to laugh at anyone. That’s how I could tell them apart.” 

“Seriously?” Bucky raised his eyebrows at Steve, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose. Steve nodded and picked up the papers again. “All this time it was something as simple as Maggie just trying not to smile?” He asked, louder in disbelief now. He could hear Steve’s content hum.  “That’s…” Bucky trailed off, looked to Winnie climb out of the pool and drop the ball. “That’s so fucking Maggie,” Bucky muttered to himself, watching the soaked golden dog wander over to the goats. 

He removed his arm from around Roxy, placed them on the edge of the pool and shoved himself into the water. The chill of it chased the breath out of his lungs, making his right arm break out in goosebumps before he settled. The water instantly cooled him down from the heat of the early afternoon Wakandan sun. He swam out, twisted in the water and floated on his back, shutting his eyes. “Steve?” 

“Mm?”

“Come in the water with me?” Bucky coaxed. He didn’t hear a response at first, and he didn’t  look to see if Steve would come over. It wasn’t until Steve reached Roxy and told her she was a good dog that he knew he had succeeded. 

  
Grinning to himself he stopped floating and looked as Steve slid into the water with grace. “I’m not wearing sunscreen, if I burn, it’s all your fault,” Steve warned. Bucky rolled his eyes and splashed him. 

“I can’t believe you still get sunburnt.” 

“I can’t believe you don’t! You’re Irish and Scottish. That should have you red all the time.” Now it was Steve’s turn to splash him in return. Bucky retorted in the same childish manner and stuck out his tongue. 

Steve grabbed Bucky by his wrist and pulled him in. 

“The thing is Stevie,” Bucky mused, letting Steve put his arms around his waist all while he put his own around Steve’s neck. “I, am amazing, and therefore I get certain privileges.” He flashed teeth to Steve. Steve snorted. “Have you finished the chapter?”

“Nearly. Just got a page or two to go. It’s good, I like the book.”

Bucky nodded a couple of times, all while watching Steve, trying to catch any hint of his emotions. He caught none, Steve looked as happy as ever, as content as ever. “Hey Steve?” He asked, only getting a faint hum in response. “Do you think I’m an ass, for what I did to those girls?” 

Steve sighed and cast his gaze down to the water. Bucky felt his heart begin to thump in his chest as he waited for a response. The light touch of Steve’s fingers on the small of his back did little to ease his worry. “I don’t approve of what you did,” Steve began, looking back up to Bucky with a faint smile. “But I understand why you did it, and I don’t blame you for it. And to answer your question. No. I don’t think that you’re an ass for what you did.”

Bucky nodded faintly, suddenly glad he was wearing sunglasses. Steve wouldn’t be able to see how his eyes began to water. He hugged Steve tighter, resting his chin against Steve’s shoulder. The grip around his waist tightened as well as Steve held him closer. 

“I was jealous you know?” Steve whispered to him. “I was jealous and angry and I didn’t realise what I was feeling was jealousy and anger. It took me a long time to realise that. If we both had been just honest with ourselves, I think we would have saved ourselves a whole lot of heartache. And those girls too.”

“Yeah,” Bucky whispered on a low tone. “We would have.” He thought of all the hearts he had broken in his youth. A collection of trophies he never would be proud of. 


	5. Sarah, building a life, and Minnie

“How long is the book going to be you think?” Steve asked curiously, flipping through the brown leather notebook that he had given Bucky just a week before. “And when is going to be the ending?” His eyes scanning over the scribbled writing, hastily dotted down notes and memories that had come to Bucky in the midst of other moments. 

Bucky shrugged in response, knowing full well that Steve couldn’t see it with his eyes glued to his handwriting like that. “I don’t know, something pretty recent I guess,” Bucky admitted. “At least until past the whole shitstorm in DC. Cause I’m pretty sure that’s what people most want to read. That and HYDRA.” He stretched out against the back of the couch, feeling the muscles in his back stretch. He wasn’t looking forward to writing about HYDRA. “Then, probably write about how I became me again, becoming normal. So about a chapter of thirteen, fourteen maybe? Haven’t decided how I want to wrap it up.” 

Steve hummed, closing the notebook and coming over to Bucky. He bent over the couch and put his arms around Bucky’s neck, pressing a soft kiss just above the skin revealed by his henley. Bucky relaxed back against him, feeling the tickle of Steve’s beard in the curve of his neck. “You going to write about us, now I mean? Here?” 

“I don’t know yet.” Bucky placed his metal hand on Steve’s arm, squeezing it a little. “I might. Haven’t quite decided what to do with that yet. It’s part of my story but… I’m not sure I want to share that much detail of my life with them you know?” 

“I know,” Steve whispered, shifting behind Bucky so he now was kneeling on the floor, still holding Bucky over the back of the couch. Now just without breaking his back in the process. 

“They already know we’re a thing,” Bucky said with a light shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t know, I guess I just… want to keep some details to myself, that’s all.” 

“Well, you don’t have to tell them everything.” Steve pressed another kiss to the skin on Bucky’s shoulder. “You’re writing it chronologically. You’ve got a lot of time before you reach that point. So don’t worry about it now. When you reach it, that’s when you can decide.” 

Bucky hummed in response and gave Steve another squeeze on his arm. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” He smiled a little bit. It was still a while to go. And while he had been diligent this past month with his little project, it still felt many miles away from completion. He wasn’t in any hurry. He had all the time of the world for as far as he was concerned, and he had no obligations. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Steve encouraged, holding Bucky a little bit tighter for a split second before letting go and standing up. “Oh. By the way.” Steve brought his fingers into Bucky’s hair, massaging his scalp. Bucky groaned at the feeling, tilting his head forward and feeling his muscles going slack in his neck and shoulder. “Think you could make burgers for dinner tonight? Pretty please?” 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 5 - Sarah, building a life, and Minnie**

 

Steve saw everything. But there was one thing in the middle of his life that he didn’t see. Or chose not to see. That he chose to deny even to himself. And I don’t think that anyone in the world can blame him for that. I think it’s quite normal for a child to think of a parent as immortal. 

It’s not a wonder that at the age of sixteen, Steve turned a blind eye to the fact that his mother was growing ill. Bit by bit. She was his mother, she was always going to be there, she would always look after him, she would always be there to support him or to fight for him. Which, to be honest, she had to do a lot. She fought against schools and against doctors, priests and nuns and people who claimed that Steve should have died as a little boy. Fought against the people who told her that the right thing for Sarah to do should have been to suffocate him when he was an infant. She fought all of those people for him with such an intense amount of energy that it was a wonder she never crashed from it. 

Every time her energy seemed to drain, she looked at Steve and there it would be, the same amount of fight in her that was so clearly visible in Steve’s eyes. He got it from her, no matter what Sarah said. She’d tried to claim Steve got it from his father, but there’s no way. He got his fight from his mother. 

Sarah worked as a nurse, which is common knowledge in today’s day and age. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a trivia or bonus question for some teenager’s history test. If I was a teacher, I would’ve done that. What’s less commonly known or taught is that Sarah worked as a nurse in the TB ward.

Back then TB was rampant, especially where we lived -- in the poorer areas of the city. Now for those of you don’t know what Tuberculosis is, it’s a infection that sets on your lungs most of the time, but it can get your brain as well. I’m not a doctor, I’m not going to lie I have no idea why TB does what it does, and I didn’t bother looking it up for this either. All I know is from watching Sarah, and what Steve told me. 

I remember when we were sixteen, Steve was doing his homework and I was keeping him company. I think she was cooking, and she started coughing. At the time neither of us thought much of it, and I don’t know why that image is standing out so vividly to me now. Maybe it was because it wasn’t usual for her to do that, and after that it seemed to happen more often. 

As the year went by, she would cough more frequently, more rough. Deep and rattling that would set her wheezing to catch her breath. If Steve asked how she was doing, she would just hiss defensively that she was fine, and continue with what she was doing. It didn’t take long for her to grow pale. Her face, otherwise so beautiful and round, started to sink in and her skin started to look clammy. There were always thin strands of her hair plastered to her forehead and small beads of sweat dotted all over her, down to her chest. 

That wheeze, that’s a sound I will never forget again. How after coughing she would take a breath, struggling so hard to make it deep and make it count. How all her effort went into trying to pull the oxygen deep down in her lungs and how her shoulders would raise ever so slightly. But it would only reach down just past her throat, not deep enough. She’d have to grab onto a chair or the stove to keep from falling. How desperately she tried to keep her legs standing and solid underneath her. 

Sarah had seen the disease for many years. She knew exactly what it was doing to people when they got sick. She had been there by their sides as they struggled with their last breaths and coughed up blood. Tried to soothe them near the end and hold their hand, dab their foreheads to ease their fevers with cold water and sang to them. Comforted them about the future to come, about the next path that they would take after death and towards whatever sort of afterlife they believed. 

She had seen the fear in the eyes of those people, the anxiety and faint whispers of no  _ no no no please no I’m scared _ and people crying and sobbing and calling out for their mothers. Mothers long gone or mothers who couldn’t come and see them in a closed ward. She’d seen how they feared to fall asleep and rest and seen how they all had languished away into nothingness. Arriving first with still some strength, and then withering away, turning into skeletons with bloodshot eyes. 

Sarah must have known what kind of fate that awaited her. Must have known that she had this disease. She had to look at her son, who barely was seventeen in a world that didn’t even want him. And she had to realise that she wouldn’t be there to fight for him much longer. That must have been the worst kind of torture that the world, that any god could put a person through. 

To make matters worse, it was at work where she got it confirmed. I’m sure Sarah already knew that she had tuberculosis, but actually hearing it from a doctor is something else. 

She collapsed at work one day. She got into a coughing fit and couldn’t catch her breath back. She fell, and dragged a whole tray of medicine with her as she did and sent it scattering and breaking over the floor. 

At least she had the best doctors at hand for her, and they could instantly help her in the same way that she had spent years doing the same to others. The tragedy was, she wasn’t allowed to go home. Once they managed ease her breathing, to calm her down and insist that they knew she wasn’t fine. They told her she had to stay. 

She had the disease, a highly infectious disease. She was ill, she was really ill. By then, she was already coughing up blood and she must have had a fever for weeks on end. Low, but ever murmuring under her skin. It all weakened her bit by bit. She had lost weight, nearly 25 lbs. She was thin, but she wasn’t a skeleton just yet. She would get there, though. 

One of the nurses she worked with had to go home and tell Steve, that she wouldn’t be coming home. The nurse told him that she wasn’t just sick, but that she was dying. 

Steve reacted just like you think. The first thing he did was go over to the sanatorium where she worked and demand to see his mother. He demanded that they let him in because all he wanted to do was to hug her and take her home. He tried to plead and to bargain, that he would take her home and that he would look after her. As it should be, she had looked after him all those years and now it was his turn to return the favor. Why wouldn’t they let him in?

Letting him in would only mean that he too would get sick and that he’d spread the disease around. It was a wonder in their eyes that he already wasn’t sick, considering his history. Even back then they knew that if you were prone to sickness you were more susceptible to serious illness. The sanatorium was doing him a favour as far as they were concerned, by slamming the door in his face. 

The worst thing of all was when a nurse came out from the ward after having spoken to Sarah. She told Steve to go home, that Sarah had told him to go home and not come and visit. Steve knew that the nurse had spoken with his mother, because she called him ‘sweet,’ which was what his mom always called him when she wanted him to do something.

Steve couldn’t do anything but leave. What was he supposed to do? Just sit there on a bench for hours on end? It was unlikely that Sarah would change her mind, she had worked amongst the staff herself who never once had let a healthy person step into the ward. Even if she gave in, even if she did want her son to be there during her final breaths, her old coworkers would be the ones to hold Steve out. 

Steve did the one and only thing he could think of. He went home to me, and he set my mother upon the sanatorium. I remember when he arrived in hysteric, banging down the door, wheezing from having ran three miles that he really shouldn’t have. He explained everything in one ramble, without taking a breath and nearly bursting out into tears. 

Winnie, of course, pulled on her coat and told Steve to stay put while she was off to have a word with them. Steve started to cry after she left. It was just me and my sisters trying to comfort him, trying to make him feel better about this incredibly dreadful situation and the prospect of never seeing his mother again. 

Eventually we managed to calm his ragged breathing and prevented an asthma attack. A bit after that, Steve’s hysterics eased, and he retreated somewhere deep in his head. It felt like hours had passed by the time my mother returned back home. 

The air was tense when she took off her coat, with the four of us waiting in silence to hear what she had to say, if she had managed to see Sarah and if she managed to talk to her. 

All she had to do was to give Steve a sad sort of smile for him to burst out into tears. That was all it took. That was all it took for any of us to realise that the situation with Sarah was quite permanent. My mother held Steve for most of that night, and he stayed with us for a while. She looked after him like she always had, tried to make him go to school, tried to make him eat, tried to make him feel better of the whole situation. 

Through everything, Steve wanted to go and see her. I wanted to go and see her. My mother forbid me in doing so, saying she would not have me wind up in there too. When it came to Steve, though, she didn’t have that power, and he tried every day to get in. Every day, we’d march to the sanatorium. I would sit on the stoop and wait while he tried to convince the nurses to let him in. They never did. 

Through it all though they relayed messages to Steve, messages he never shared with me and that I never asked for. They told him how she was doing, and tried to tell him the good parts. Every visit, it seemed like those were fewer, and fewer. He would draw for her, he would bring her presents, and he did his best to look after her like a family member should. He brought her new clothes when she needed it, he bought her necessities, and he tried to buy her sweets to get her to eat at least something.

Through it all, Steve never saw Sarah dying. He only had to hear about it, but he doesn’t have the memory ingrained in his eyes. He never saw her truly ill. Steve’s last memories of his mother is her smiling and laughing. They’re of them alone and home, in peace and together. 

Roughly a month after Steve’s eighteenth birthday, Sarah Rogers drowned in her own blood in her lungs. 

Steve buried her. He laid her to rest next to his father, and attended the funeral alone. He didn’t want us there. He hadn’t been there while she had suffered, and he wanted his final moment with his mother to be one just they shared with one another. It didn’t sit right with any of us. Winnie had us donned up to our best, waiting at the kitchen table just in case Steve came over to tell us that he had changed his mind. 

He didn’t. I found him after the funeral when he didn’t come home. We talked a bit. Then he went back to the apartment that had been his and his mother’s, but now was just his. Steve wanted to go about it all alone. I let him. 

 

\--

 

Steve locked himself away from us for a couple of months. I let him do it. It wasn’t with ill intent, or that I didn’t know how to help Steve or anything. Well alright, I had no clue how to help Steve and be there for him. The guy had lost his mother, how on earth was my presence going to help him? I had nightmares of losing my own mother after Sarah died, and the terror I woke up with probably didn’t even come near to what he was feeling. 

He locked himself away from me, and I let it happen, despite having my own key to his apartment. I figured that he just wanted to be alone. That he needed just needed time to get over his dread and grief. If I came along and broke up his grieving process, it would just take him longer to work through his healing process I thought. 

It perhaps wasn’t the right thing to do, but it’s what I did. I left Steve be and I gave him space while he mourned. I tried to answer Winnie’s questions as well as I could in regards of how he was doing, and could see she wasn’t pleased with the responses that barely could qualify as answers. 

My father didn’t ask. Over the course of our teenage years, George had grown a bit distant to Steve for reasons that I will never know, but only can speculate about. I imagine it is partially because my father put so much focus on being a man, being big and being strong. Steve was neither of those things. He was small and sickly still, an artist with a sensitive soul even if he showed it by being a spitfire. 

Part of me thinks that my father knew I loved him, and that he disapproved. 

With Steve now locked away behind doors, I found that I had a whole lot of time on my hands that I didn’t know what to do with. I worked, some days I worked longer than usual. I went out and I danced with girls. Had short romances with girls, but never really hung out with them more than I needed to. I read through all my books in a matter of weeks. I was bored. I was absolutely bored shitless. 

The logical thing to do, of course, was to get another hobby. That’s how I wound up into boxing. It was at the suggestion of my father, really. And who was I to object? I needed something to do, and I had come to enjoy the physical exercise that came with working. Who was to say that I wouldn’t enjoy it as a sport either?

At the beginning, like pretty much anyone, I absolutely fucking sucked. I could fight and defend Steve and myself. But it turns out fighting on the street and boxing are two entirely different things, and I lacked a whole lot of finesse that I thought that I had. 

All of a sudden I was the one walking down the street with bruises on my face, black eyes (which it seemed, once the swelling went down, a lot of girls actually liked the look of), bruises on my cheekbones. It hurt, of course it hurt, but it gave me something else to do. Bit by bit that finesse started to come to me, and I started building the required muscles needed for the sport. 

The problem with boxing however, was that boxing involved a lot of men without shirts, only shorts in a warm room. Many of them were quite nice to look at and just the thing that I had been denying myself. I wished almost instantly that I had settled for a different sort of hobby that was more innocent. 

Instead I was now surrounded by half-naked men whose company I enjoyed, and who I liked to look at. You’ve got to keep in mind, I was only nineteen back then, at a what’s supposed to be the very peak of male sexuality and sex drive. So it goes without saying, I found myself in some deep shit.

As terrible as it is to say, I was glad that there was some distance between Steve and I. I hoped that the time we spent apart would lessen my want to shove him up a wall and kiss him. That being separate would make the love that I felt for him disappear in a naive hope that we’d just be able to be friends again after that. I would become normal and not sick with this love for him again. I missed him, and was naive to think that my feelings would change just like that. 

I had my fantasies about some of the guys I boxed with, my body changed again. I ended up a tad more muscular, more in shape. I jerked off plenty to so, so many fantasies. Months passed. After five months, I wasn’t going to let Steve continue feeling sorry for himself. I missed the little fucker. 

After respecting his space for so long, I went to the apartment and let myself in. And there he was, wallowing in misery and grief. Not saying he wasn’t allowed to, he most definitely was, but just existing at the bare minimum wouldn’t do him good in the long run. I forced him up from the couch. I forced him to wash up and put on fresh clothing. I told him Mom was making dinner for us all, and that he had to come. She wasn’t having it any other way. 

It was a white lie, my mother hadn’t told me to bring Steve over, but it worked nonetheless. We stopped for roses on the way, because while my mother hadn’t told me to bring Steve, she was rightly furious at him for just disappearing out of our lives like that. She cried when we walked through the door, and clung to Steve for a solid minute while sobbing. Then she gave him the scolding of his life, telling him not to worry her like that and she was going to turn grey because of him.

In the end, she sniffed and said that the flowers were real nice. She went right back to sobbing after that. We had a nice evening together, all sat and played cards around the table until the dead of the night. Steve wouldn’t spend the night though, said he didn’t want to intrude on us and that he wanted to sleep in his own bed. 

I walked him back home. We had been talking to one another in low voices all the evening. I told him what he had missed. He spoke to me about how he felt, how he had missed his mother.  We sat down outside in front of the apartment when we get there, and kept talking for another hour, catching up with one another. I don’t know how long we sat there, looking up to the sky and searching for stars that weren’t even visible because of all the smoke and smog. 

And then, at some point we just sat together in silence for a while. Steve asked if I would stay the night with him. I looked at him then, and in that moment I realised that all I wanted was to kiss him. All those months apart and I still fucking loved him like nothing had ever happened. I looked away. I swallowed and said that I would. 

I spent that night on the couch, and the next, and the next. The night after that, too. After three weeks of sleeping on the couch, I forcibly moved myself in. I refused to sleep on the couch for another night because it would make me old before my time. My mother was devastated, but had figured that the day would come where I would move out. 

I felt a little bit guilty, knowing that they relied on me to work and help with money. I still did that, I kept giving 90% of my wages to help my family. But they told me not to worry, they would manage one way or another. Besides, me leaving meant one mouth less to feed, and the mouth of a boy was about the size of an ocean Winnie told me. Steve needed the help, he needed the company. He needed someone there with him to survive. 

Sure, he could do all of that just fine on his own, but he wasn’t well on his own, he was miserable. He needed someone there with him. He only worked part time back then, he was still trying to finish school. To stretch a part time wage for him alone meant that he was short a lot of the time. He couldn’t afford medicine, and he couldn’t afford to feed himself properly. He was trying to make soup last for an entire week. 

I had gotten raises by then. I was earning just above $140 a month on my own. I was a good worker, I worked longer hours and I had learned the trade quickly and fast. I could afford the rent for the both of us and feed us both all month, and still have money to spare for when we went out. I intended on doing just that rather than letting Steve work and go to school at the same time. I might not have a shot at college, but Steve deserved that, and if he didn’t have anyone to support him, he wouldn’t manage. 

Steve was working by packing groceries. He worked four days  a week, in five hour shifts because it was all the time he could spare while managing his homework. Not only that, they grievously underpaid him -- at twenty cents an hour Steve would only earn a buck a shift. For a month, that only brought Steve roughly twenty bucks, depending on how the month was looking. His rent was twice that. He tried to make due by selling sketches, but that was hit or miss, and he didn’t have time to draw to the extent that it would cover his full rent, let alone sell enough.

He had an understanding with his landlady. She was patient and realised that it was a hard time for Steve after his mother had died. This lasted for three months, and allowed him some time to grieve. But she was only understanding for so long. She had to make a profit of the apartment after all. 

So I moved my bed in. I moved in my books, my clothes, the few trinkets that I owned. By then, Steve’s landlady was quite annoyed with him, and there was quite a backlog of rent to pay. I paid of a large chunk of it, leaving Steve annoyed at  _ me,  _ because he wanted to do it, and he hadn’t asked me to move in to pay for him. 

Steve entirely saw over the fact that I wanted to, and that I was going to do my haul of the costs. In the end I told him to shut up, and he could do all the chores and cook for us if he wanted to make up for it. You can bet your ass that Steve did just that. He did it with his nose in the air. At least until I stripped him of the privilege of cooking. Because he could not cook for the life of him and it felt like he was trying to poison me. He still can’t cook these days in case you’re wondering. 

Over the next few months, we paid off the backlog, and lived on the bare minimum ourselves. I stopped going out for a little while, and most of our evenings were spent either playing cards, or with me reading and Steve drawing. He did his homework, and during those months he finished high school. I have never been more proud of anyone as I was of Steve at that moment. 

Just when I thought that I couldn’t be more proud of him, he went off to college to become an illustrator. My doing, mostly. I had to guilt trip him into going, saying I had already paid for it and it would be a waste of money if he didn’t. He was furious with me for a while. That didn’t mean that he didn’t go out of anger. He pretended to do so all pouting and angry with me. But you can be damn sure that I saw him smile when he was working on his projects for school. 

He was so fucking proud of his work, and his smile was beautiful.  

 

\--

 

They’re some of the best years of my life, my early twenties. I didn’t have Steve as someone to love, sure. And oh did I love him. But I had him as my best friend. We did what every damn set of boys do at that age. We weren’t any different. We went out and we got drunk. I went dancing and Steve watched. I went out with girls and Steve went to his art classes. We went out to fairs and Coney Island some more, but never again on the fucking Hurricane. 

We played cards with one another and we’d gamble. We’d hang out with our other friends. Steve kept getting into fights, when he wasn’t getting sick. He went to school, worked on one amazing project after the other, creating the most beautiful pieces of art that you’d ever see. We tried to fix up the apartment. Well, I did mostly with what I knew. We did pretty well. We put in new floors. I dried out the mold in some walls, fixed a couple of doorways. We attempted plumbing, but I didn’t have the skill for that and fucked up our kitchen sink more than we were able to fix it. 

I cut Steve’s hair to save money. I let him cut mine approximately once before never letting him grab a pair of scissors ever again. He still persists it wasn’t that bad, but it was, it was fucking terrible. 

It’s probably getting a little bit old by now, but I still loved him. Watching him beside me, day in day out in our apartment, going to school, drawing, doing everything that he was doing didn’t help. So, I decided to do something about it. Well, at least within the means that I could without actually telling Steve out loud. 

Steve doesn’t know this, not yet anyway. By the time that the book is published (if it gets published) he will know, because he gets to read everything first. 

I started showing the love that I had for Steve by writing him anonymous letters. 

I wrote them whenever I was home alone. Whenever Steve was out doing something for school, or staying late to work on whatever project he had. I would sit in the kitchen hunched over paper writing letter after letter. Trying to find words for how I felt for him. Trying to put into words how wonderful and beautiful and kind that he was. 

The point was to make Steve feel like someone saw him for who he was. He saw the world to its core. I wanted Steve to feel like that there was someone out who saw him right back. So I wrote all the tiny miniscule details that I could come up with about him. I was also careful of only mentioning details about him in public. Leaving it harder for him to figure out who actually wrote him the letters. 

Plus, when I was content with my draft I rewrote the entire thing and purposely tried to write it in an entirely different style so he wouldn’t be able to tell that I was writing them. So I wrote about the glint in his eyes whenever he was drawing or sculpting. I wrote about the way he would smile when we did groceries and found some flowers that were prettier than usual. I wrote about how selfless he was, always trying to do good for others. I complimented his looks, his eyes, his hands. I complimented his sense of humour and the way he seemed to walk around carrying the sun in his chest. 

I could go on and on about what I wrote. But I won’t. Those letters have been lost in time I believe, I don’t think any museum has them. I haven’t asked Steve, but he doesn’t have much stuff from before his time as Captain America. If someone has them, my mother would have saved those. I’m not going to tell you more what was in those letters. It was an intimate, secretive sort of gesture towards him, and I would like for it to remain an intimate, secret in between the two of us. How would you like it if you spilled out your guts and the rest of the world could read those thoughts?

As you’ve understood by now, I’m a secretive person. I would very much like to keep what I still have control over to myself, and Steve. 

Now, I went out of my way to ensure that my cover was hidden. Different handwriting. Even different paper than what we used. I was paranoid, okay? Steve did art as a focus, of course he would be able to touch the paper and think that it felt like ours. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t have, but I thought best to be safe. 

So different paper, and I even went to different parts of the city to post it to him in case he even had a look at the stamps to see where it was from. I never posted them with a return address on the back, of course. This way, when they arrived, the envelope was addressed to Steve and only Steve. It would leave him no hints as to who had sent them. 

The privilege that I had, of course, living at the same address was to occasionally tell him he got mail. I got to watch him as he opened the first letter with a confused frown. I got to watch as that frown smoothed out. How those very fine features that I had written about  would appear on him and see that smile. How his cheeks would turn a bit pink and how he would grip the letter just that little bit tighter. 

I never asked him what was in those letters. He never showed them to me either, so I sensed he wanted to keep them private and for himself. But they made him happy, and that was good enough for me. 

 

\--

 

Minnie was special. 

By the time I was twenty-six, I had worked my way through many girlfriends. I’m not going to bother writing down the number, because chances are I’ve got it wrong, and that some girls still fell into the gaps that’s my mind. Minnie was my last girlfriend, and she was the last for more reasons than one. She wasn’t just my girlfriend back then, but she was also a very good friend of mine. 

Minnie Lehman wasn’t originally from Brooklyn. She wasn’t even originally a New Yorker. Raised by her mother alone down in Florida, she had come to Brooklyn at the age of nineteen after her mother’s death to become an actress. She had nothing to stay for down in the small town that she came from, and she thought why the hell not?

In a way, Minnie was a woman before her time. She didn’t let anyone boss her around and had quite the attitude, but at the same time, she was sweet and gentle. Just because she had an attitude didn’t mean that she used it all the time. She used it whenever someone (mostly men) tried to put her down. She would seem as an easy target in banks, shops, markets, on the streets, god knows where else, as a small town girl suddenly on her own in the big city, but Minnie wasn’t an easy target. 

We met out dancing one evening. She was pretty and had the face to become an actress. Although I won't speak for talents, I never got to see her act. Minnie was fun, she made crude jokes that made me choke on my drink. She had those fantastic thoughts late at night that spurred a three hour dreamy discussion whether or not we’d ever be able to travel to the moon. She was the sort of girl who would dead serious ponder over the question if dogs think in barks. That isn’t a new wonder, by the way, we wondered that too back then. 

Out of all my girlfriends, I liked Minnie the most. She had such an easy air about herself that made her easy to talk to and to open up too. She had the same amount of passion as I did for dancing and most importantly, she just wanted to have fun. She was the one and only girl who ever sat me down and said that she didn’t want a relationship. She was new to the town, she was young, and she wanted to experience her life first. Minnie wasn’t going to be the sort of girl to get attached to the first man she invited to her bed (and I wouldn’t be the first either), she wanted to be out there and play the field until she found the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She could tell I wasn’t going to be that person, but she also could tell that she liked me for who I was, and that she still wanted me as a friend, and if we got physical enjoyment out of one another, then who were we to say that we couldn’t?

For me, this was perfect. For me, this was a relationship that wasn’t serious, with someone who I could relax about and know that she wouldn’t tell me that she loved me late one evening. This was someone who I could be with and have fun with, and keep up the front easily enough that I enjoyed women. 

Steve might have been my best male friend, but Minnie was my best female friend, and someone who I absolutely adored, and wished all the best. 

It was to her that I opened up. She fished my deepest secret out of me, and oddly enough I was okay with her knowing. Minnie made me feel safe, and I didn’t fear any repercussion in telling her. Sure, I hadn’t intended on telling her, the conversation just ended up naturally going that way. 

We were in her bedroom, and out of the blue, she asked me to tell her a secret. It wasn’t an odd request of hers. It was something to expect while laying in bed with her, relaxing and talking. So I indulged her. You’ve got to understand, I was telling Steve in letters that I loved him, but I had never spoken the words out loud that were burning a hole in my chest. So, I told her I loved someone. 

She was amazed, impressed, and so, so innocently curious as to who I loved. Because while we were having fun together, while we occasionally slept with one another my reputation had not escaped her. I was just as praised for giving the girls a good time with dances and drinks and dates, all things I truly enjoyed, as I was hated, too. whispered from one girl to another to be careful with me because all I did was break hearts. Minnie had gone ahead with me anyway, because she never intended to give her heart to me. 

So, of course, she wanted to know who had captured my heart. And she, like any person would, assumed that I was talking about a girl. Most importantly, she wanted to know if the girl knew that I was speaking so highly of her, if the girl knew that I was devoted to her.

I told her no. After that came a cascade of questions why did she not know, because she was seeing someone else? Because she was married? Because she lived elsewhere? Because I had only ever seen her for one glimpse? She cracked me, she didn’t intend to, but the weight of those questions worked me up. I started to cry, because I truly did want to tell Steve, but the obstacles she listed was nothing compared to the one I stood for. 

She held me, she held me until I calmed down. Worried that she had stepped too far, worried that she had opened a wound. Worried that this girl I had spoken of might have been dead, and I could never have her. Until I told her that the person I loved was a man. She held me some more, tried to comfort me and tried to make me feel better. 

She didn’t freak out. She didn’t shove me away, she didn’t shun me or start shouting at me. Instead she let me weep, and held me, brushed her fingers through my hair and whispered to me that it was okay. That she was sorry and that she understood now. It didn’t take long for her to understand that I had spoken about Steve. She said she was happy for me, that I had found someone to love so wholeheartedly, but she also told me she was sorry. Sorry that we were in a world where I couldn’t show my love to him, or any other man.

Minnie did what any good friend would do. She guarded my secret deeply. Held it to her chest tight, and proceeded to call me her partner to anyone who asked, even if that wasn’t the case. She proceeded to go out with me, to dance, to go to movies and to hold my hand as we walked down the street. She proceeded to only kiss me on my cheek, to only hug me, and wouldn’t initiate any form of sexual acts anymore. Minnie became my shield without me having to ask her. She stayed my friend, and didn’t treat me any differently. 

Though she encouraged me to tell Steve, telling me that she was certain he wouldn’t push me away, that he might even love me back, or be open minded enough to give us a go. If he wasn’t interested, she knew that Steve from the good of his heart would let me down gently, and still be my friend. She never pushed this when I told her I didn’t want to talk about it. She started to see Steve in a new light, and told me she understood. 

Minnie was the only other person besides my family that I looked up what happened to when I started to reclaim myself. Once I remembered her, that is. I found that she had married in the late forties. She never became an actress, but she had a beautiful little girl. I also found out that Minnie, her husband and her daughter died in the late fifties. Drunk driver, car set ablaze.

There’s no remnant of her left besides a few newspaper articles now. 

So this is my ode to her, to Minnie Lehman, who was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. She was the most wonderful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to share my time with. Minnie deserved better in life. She doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. I hope that with writing this down, she will be remembered forever. I hope that one way or another, in whatever form the afterlife takes, that she knows that there’s still someone down here on earth missing her. 

 

~~*~~

 

Bucky instantly regretted giving the chapter to Steve the moment he saw him appear in the kitchen. He’d known that the chapter would be upsetting to Steve, and had gone as far to warn him that he might not like it. He didn’t have to read it, but saying those words had been like talking to a wall. Steve would read it from start to finish and there would be nothing that Bucky could do about that. 

So he had worried just how well Steve would handle reading the chapter in which his mother died. It wasn’t like it was an unspoken thing. But it was a topic Bucky had always sensed that Steve much rather wanted to brush over than talk in depth of how he had handled it. That apparently hadn’t changed.

He stood there now, in the doorway to their kitchen, with papers still in hands that were trembling a bit. With red watery eyes and flushed cheeks, Steve sniffed and looked down to the papers again. 

“Shit, bun,” Bucky said on a soft voice, instantly forgetting about the hamburgers that he had promised Steve he would make. He dropped the minced beef on the cutting board. He snatched off the plastic gloves he used for handling meat, ensuring that way that nothing ever wound up stuck in the plates.

Bucky all but threw his arms around Steve’s neck, feeling instantly how Steve hugged him tight, clinging on to him for dear life as he hid in Bucky’s neck. He could feel the papers over his back as Steve started to sob, massive shoulders shaking with the movement, tears beginning to wet his neck. 

“Shh, it’s okay bun I got you,” Bucky whispered to him, placing metal hand solidly in Steve’s neck while the other was stroking him up and down his back. “I got you. I’m sorry, bun. I got you.” 

Steve cried, and cried. Bucky didn’t look at the clock. He just stood there, holding him tight, standing upright and making sure that Steve had someone to lean on as he sobbed. That he had someone whispering to him that it was alright, had someone who was stroking his back in an attempt to make him feel better. 

After a couple of minutes, Steve pulled away. Tiny movements that made Bucky let go of him, allowed him to step back all while watching him attentively. Making sure that Steve knew he was there in case it overwhelmed him again. It didn’t. Steve looked down to the papers again, sniffed one last time and handed them over to Bucky. “You wrote it well.”

“I’m sorry.” Came Bucky’s instant reply, taking the papers without even looking down on them and put them down on the table beside them. His book wasn’t important at that moment. Steve was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you with it.” 

“I know you didn’t.” Steve smiled weakly to him, facing Bucky’s eyes now. They were bloodshot red, and Bucky didn’t like the look of that. Thankfully, It seemed like Steve’s shoulders had relaxed a bit. “It just… it just was a bit harder to read than I thought it would be,” Steve admitted. 

“You okay, bun?” Bucky asked carefully, observing all of Steve’s features to stay on guard for any cracks in his composed self. He found none. 

“Yeah I just…” Steve only held his composure for that long, and the cracks that Bucky was looking for were already appearing. “I just miss her.” Bucky reached for the roll of paper towels and pulled off one to give to Steve. He took it and dabbed it at his eyes. “I just really miss Mom.” 

“I know,” Bucky said on a soft tone, tilting his head a little bit to the side as he stroked Steve on his arm, then let his hand trail down until he found Steve’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Steve, I want you to be honest with me. Do you want me to take it out? Because if you do, I’ll do it. No questions asked.” 

“No.” Steve shook his head, glancing towards the papers on the table. “No, you shouldn’t take it out, it’s the truth. It should stay in there. I want it to stay in there. She was your mother, too. Just, caught me off guard. I knew it was coming, but it surprised me. That’s all.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand again, then pulled him in for another hug. Steve moved his arms around Bucky’s back again, sighing deeply in the crook of his neck. “I miss her, too,” Bucky whispered in return, while patting Steve’s hair. They stood in the kitchen like that, Bucky holding Steve for as long as he wanted to be held. The burgers could wait. 

“Did you really write me those love letters?” Steve eventually whispered, carefully breaching the silence that had been layered over the pair of them. Bucky found himself smiling again and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Steve’s head as a response. 


	6. WWII & Commandos

Steve had been solemn for the past two weeks, not that Bucky could blame him. The death of Sarah Rogers had rocked Steve to his core back in the thirties.It hadn’t been much of a surprise that he had gotten so upset about it. So Bucky had waited, while continuing to write. 

He put his focus on Steve, tried to get him to come along whenever he went out in the greenhouse so he could set mind on other things. They took hikes together with the dogs in the early mornings before it became too warm, to Bucky’s dismay as he liked to sleep in. They wound up in front of the television watching the entirety of Frasier in almost one sitting, not counting naps. It took them eight days to finish it all. After that and a well needed shower, they went out for a good long run, feeling as if the couch sitting had made them like bags of flour, hard to the touch but heavy dead weight. 

Not long after that Bucky found himself watching Altered Carbon (which he luckily for him, he managed all in one day) and let it blow his mind away. T’Challa and Shuri joined them for dinner one night. They finished touching up the guest room together, hanging up wallpaper, which Bucky found more amusing than painting walls.

Steve didn’t bring up the book again until three weeks later, when they were barbequing. Which meant that Bucky was the one standing in front of the grill and Steve was sitting in his lounge chair. He dropped his book on his chest, and stared at Bucky. “When are you gonna continue writing?” 

Bucky shrugged, beer in hand. He couldn’t get drunk anymore, but that didn’t stop him from still enjoying the flavour. “Dunno.” He brought the bottle up to his lips and drank while flipping the steaks. 

"What’s next?” Steve asked, and Bucky didn’t have to turn around to know that Steve had picked up his book again, really only reading it with half a mind.

“War,” Bucky stated dryly. “Haven’t decided how to approach that. Gonna write about the other guys too. The Howling Commandos before we were actually the Commandos.” 

“Well, when you do,” Steve began, already smirking to himself. “Make sure you mention that time when we set Gabe and Jacques up for that date with one another. They waited half the evening in the rain for their dates. I promised them I’d never let them hear the end of it -- the world needs to know about that.” 

Bucky started cackling. 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 6 - WWII & Commandos**

 

I remember when we first heard about Pearl Harbor. We were at an art class, an after school thing that Steve had talked me into joining. I had no interest in going if I’m going to be entirely honest, but I went for Steve’s sake. We heard about the bombing over the radio, and the whole room was quiet. Everybody knew that there was a war going on in Europe, but it seemed so far away from us. 

Pearl Harbor was our 9/11, in a way. 

The United States responded in the one way that it knew how to do, and decided to join the war. I remember looking down to Steve, squeezing his shoulder and telling him that we best continue with the assignment. I knew at that moment that the little fucker would try to do everything to enlist. Steve with his heart filled of gold and glory, desperate to do the right thing. The right thing this time was to stop the Nazis. 

I was terrified that the army would take him, ship him out to Europe to die in some trench. Luckily for me (yes Steve, luckily for me because I swear I was developing an ulcer from stress about the whole ordeal) the army wouldn’t have him. They took one look at his medical history and told him to go back home every damn time. 

They didn’t just tell this to Steve Rogers from Brooklyn. They told this to Steve Rogers from Easton. Steve Rogers from Springfield, Steve Rogers from Harrison. He even went as far as to attempt as Steve Rogers from Paramus. New fucking Jersey. That was a betrayal all on it’s own. 

We’ll get to the betrayal towards Brooklyn in a little bit. We’ve got to back up first. 

While Steve was in a hurry to head straight for the maw of the Nazis, I wasn’t. I was a little bit of a coward, I’ll openly admit that. I didn’t make any attempts to enlist, even if I knew deep down that I should make some difference. I knew what they were doing wasn’t right, but at the time I failed to see how one man would and could make a difference. 

What I knew from war came from my father, him waking up screaming and sobbing in the middle of the night still more than twenty years later. Screaming that they were all dead. Having at one point left a shell of a man from what he had seen and done. It wasn’t something I could imagine, and quite frankly, something I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle. I was selfish, I was young, I was in my early twenties and wanted to live my own life. I wanted to choose how I lived that rather than have society dictate the fact that there was a war so every single able-bodied young man should go and fight a war he had no part starting in the first place. 

I did promise myself, however, that if there was someone who bothered to accept Steve from Easton, Springfield, Harrison, even fucking Steve from New Jersey, that I would enlist the very same day. You all saw the pictures of him, he wouldn’t have lived the week out. If he didn’t get pneumonia in some trenches in the first place. We wouldn’t have been in the same unit, but if we were both in the army then I had a fragment of a chance to influence Steve’s fate. Just a fragment. 

Fate played a different trick. While no military doctors accepted Steve from Brooklyn, Easton, Springfield of Harrison into the army, I got drafted. I still needed to go through examinations, of course, but hell. Why wouldn’t they take me? 

Here I was, a young man who had worked in carpentry for the past decade, who boxed as a hobby, who was tall and healthy and the only malady I ever had was a case of measles when I was two years old. Even then they knew when you had measles once, you weren’t going to get it again nor was it going to complicate things in any way. So sure enough, they stamped me in, and that was that, I was in the army. 

I couldn’t bring to tell my family they had drafted me, though I suspected one of the twins figured it out by just looking at me. My father was proud, despite what the war had done to him and his psyche by the time that he returned. Here he had a son who lived up to what a son should do. Date women, work hard for his family, fight a war. 

My mother was devastated, and she was the most worried of all. She tried not to let her worry show, and I appreciated that because I was scared shitless, so the last thing I needed was my mother crying that I might not come home. It’s funny how death gets put in such a different perspective when you’re in that position. 

I couldn’t hide from Steve that I was deployed, nor could I just ignore telling him all together. I was going to get my orders eventually, I was going to have to go away on training and eventually overseas. So I told him I was going to go, I didn’t offer him details, but I’m pretty sure he knew. While he was the one inside the recruitment centers trying to get accepted, I was the one sitting outside with a cigarette in my hand, heart beating in my chest at the fear that he would come back out with a smile on his face. 

Knowing I was in the army would certainly just fuel his attempts to get accepted even more. Now he had more reason than one to go over and fight. If he got enlisted, he would be able to fight a war with me by his side just like always just in different units. That must have been sorely tempting and driven him to become Steve from New Jersey (Yes Steve, I’m not going to let you live this down for as long as you live, so stop rolling your eyes you know it’s true). 

But I figured, somehow, I would come back. Steve not being accepted into the army anywhere gave me a sense of drive to come back to Brooklyn after the war. To survive whatever path laid in front of me. I had lived the past decade and more being scared of the world finding out that I was a gay man. This was just a different kind of fear for a very different reason. Somehow, I would manage. Somehow, I’d pull through. 

I’d come home, and I’d eat Steve’s terrible cooking, and I would be able to relax knowing that he was safe. 

 

\--

 

I got my orders in the middle of June, and suddenly the whole ordeal was real. 

Like I said previously, I was a bit of a coward in regards to the war. I ended up in a bit of a panic. It was just sudden, too fucking sudden. I couldn’t leave just then. Steve was out of a job at the moment, working as an illustrator whenever a something fell in his lap. But you just couldn’t turn up to the army and say “Hey listen, I can’t leave this month I still got to make rent for my roommate.”

They just would tell you “Tough luck” and ship you away. I wound up in the 107th, and I would ship out the following day. It was surreal, and by far, far too fast. What on earth was I supposed to do besides get so fucking drunk to the point where I’d blind myself?

Minnie came through like a bright shining star. She sat me down and said “Listen, there’s so much you still have to do, so you make the best of this evening, alright? And you tell him.” 

Minnie and I were still a thing to the rest of the world, while she was still covering for me out of the goodness of her heart. Ever since I had told her about how I loved Steve a few months prior, she had kept trying to make me confess my feelings for Steve. Convinced that he either returned them, or that he would be gentle in letting me down. 

In a fit of minor hysterics, because my mind couldn’t seem to make up if I was going to die or if I was going to live, I said that I would. But how on earth was I going to do that? She just looked at me like I was an idiot, and told me to just tell Steve outright. Do it quick, like ripping off a band aid, but not too quick of course, he still had to be able to hear what I was saying. Take him out somewhere, do something fun, go out for drinks, and tell him when there was a moment for it. 

It was my idea to go to The World Exposition of Tomorrow -- the Stark Expo. I was the kid who loved and still loved sci-fi novels, can you blame me? She told me that was an excellent idea, and Steve would surely come considering it would be our last night together. 

And as a cover for my sake, for when I told Steve and all went well, Minnie confessed her own little secret. Her cousin, also staying in New York, carried the same sort of secret as I did. She had a girlfriend, and all that she wanted to do was to be able to enjoy a night out with her girl without having men bother them. 

It seemed like a good cover. Me and Steve chaperoning two lesbian girls to the expo to let them enjoy a date of their own. Our presence alone would ensure that they wouldn’t be bothered by other men, and when the moment came that I finally confessed my feelings to Steve, returned or not, we would be in company that wouldn’t judge, but would understand, and in return work as our own disguise. 

It felt like a bright idea at the time, planning it all out on paper. Minnie’s cousin, Ruth, was thrilled at the prospect. She got her girlfriend on board in a matter of seconds. Now I just had to find Steve. And where did I find him? 

Getting his fucking ass kicked in an alley by the pictures. I wasn’t even surprised, I had stopped being surprised somewhere around the age of fourteen. Was I surprised that the guy was a head taller, and must have had fifty, seventy pounds on Steve? Nope. Not anymore. So I did what I always did, I finished the fight, sent him scurrying, and told Steve we were going out that evening. 

As Steve was getting ready, asking me all sorts of questions about my deployment, I was nervous, and I don’t know if he could tell or not. There was a steady shiver under my clothes. All I seemed to be able to do when he was talking on, hypothesizing about possible ways that the war could go in the next month was to stare at him. I drank in every image of him, trying to tell myself that it wasn’t the last time I would see him. Trying to tell myself that I would come back, that I would tell him that evening that I loved him and that he would be waiting for me at the end of the war. 

None of that happened. We were at the expo, and I was trying to enjoy myself, I was trying to focus on all the things that were on show and letting a childish level of enjoyment come over myself. Steve by my side was miserable, I could tell. Ruth and her girlfriend were having tons of fun though, and I did my best to chaperone them. All while trying to keep an eye on Steve, keep an eye out for  _ that _ moment that would be right. Where I would tell him, and kiss him if he’d let me. 

I did a little bit of fishing as I warmed up, asking him why he was so solemn, trying to see if he had any interest in Ruth and her girlfriend without telling him why they were actually there. Poking and prodding to see if I even had a chance. It honestly felt like I had one when Steve told me that he would settle with just one, just one. Just one after I pointed out that there would be three and a half million women left in the city. 

Just one, not one woman, just one. That raised my hopes a little bit, if I’m honest. I know I know, I was reading into it, I was living up fully to my own wishful thinking. But honestly, can you blame me? This was twelve years after I realised I loved him, Steve had never been with a girl, never showed interest in anyone I tried to set him up with. Of course I hoped. 

But all of a sudden Steve disappeared. 

Well, not disappeared. 

There was a recruitment center at the expo, so I knew exactly where he had gone off to. Sure enough, there he was. I was furious with him. I tried not to let it show, but it certainly seeped through. Here he was, wanting to try out his luck. We had our umptenth discussion about the matter. He wanted to go off and fight and disappear on me on the night that I was meant to tell him. To finally tell him after all those years. This was supposed to be my moment with him. 

But there was no changing his mind, and it broke me a little. I tried to keep myself together, but for the first time in our friendship, I acted cold towards him. I looked at him, and all I saw in those wonderful eyes of his were sheer determination. Steve wasn’t going to let this go. 

It wasn’t the right time. This wasn’t our moment. 

All I could do was let Steve go and try his luck again, and I would put my focus on Ruth and her girl instead. I tried to leave, but with one damn fucking line Steve pulled me right back in, through my fury and through my heartbreak. All he had to do was to respond to me. I told him not to do anything stupid until I got back. All Steve had to say was “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

What a fucking lie that was. 

But it drew me right back in to him. I hugged him, trying hard to tell myself that it wasn’t the last time I would get to do so. That I would come back, and when I came back I would have my moment and I would tell him. 

And maybe Steve knew, because after that he told me not to win the war until he got there. Almost as if he knew that it was exactly what I intended to do. Both to keep Steve safe from it and to come home as soon as humanly possible. 

Somehow I kept myself composed through the entire evening with Ruth and her girl. Tried to ensure that at least they had a good time. It wasn’t until I was back with Minnie for that evening that I broke to fucking shambles. 

 

\--

 

I’m not going to write about Steve’s process of becoming Captain America. I’m not here to write over the stupid fucking idiotic thing he did -- making himself a guinea pig for some scientist he had never heard of, letting himself get injected with something that he had  **no clue** what it would do to his him if he would survive it. But it was fucking stupid. 

He knows I thinks its stupid, and he knows I was fucking furious with him for it, because while he went through all of this I had no clue that it was happening in the first place. Here I thought he was just being the regular sort of moron who would keep trying to enlist under fake names and birth records rather than letting some creepy German scientist experiment on him. 

Yes; creepy. Steve tells me otherwise but I never met the man so I consider myself having a privilege of calling anyone who experiments on Steve to be fucking creepy. Especially after finding out said scientist overheard our argument and used that as part of his reasoning behind accepting Steve as test subject. An argument, which Steve also for the record, still persists was a conversation. 

That’s all Steve’s story, and only he can be the one to tell you what actually happened. We never really talked about the dreadful second half of June, as I call it, Because it still, to this day, makes me angry to think about. 

While Steve’s the one who can tell you all about how it was to be a propaganda machine, to be controlled by someone else, to sing and dance in tights and to make short commercials before the pictures, I’m the one who can tell you about war. 

Now, war is hell. 

The thing is, you think you know what hell is until you’ve actually gone and seen it for yourself.

I thought I had some sort of idea what I was walking in to with my father being a veteran. As a little boy I would hear stories about war, I was born when the first war was still going on. It was a fresh wound. I thought I’d be prepared. As prepared as you can be knowing that what you’re walking into is going to cause the death of thousands. That there’d be screams and nightmares, blood and guts and shit and rain and mold. 

At twenty-six I was all but considered an adult. And in many ways I was. I thought I was a man, one day fighting a war made me realise that I wasn’t. 

One day in made me understand why George would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming at nothing and everything. Screaming that they were all dead. People  _ were  _ dead. In the blink of an eye, one, two, three, and then fifteen all at once. 

I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I arrived in London, I arrived to the 107th, of which I was made the sergeant of during our training, having apparently, showed all the skills they were after. Not that it meant much really. It meant that I was supposed to keep the guys together, keep their spirits lifted. Keep control when there was no one else around to tell us what to do. In London, that was easy. Despite that we walked through a rubble of a city that I had once dreamt of seeing. 

There had been bombings, often and frequently. That was my first taste of it, really. 

The bombs were loud. You didn’t just feel the ground shake. The walls shook, you became painfully aware of every muscle in your body as a bomb hit the ground and blew up, because you would feel the vibration tore through every fibre, as if it was trying to shake it loose from your muscles. 

For a moment, you would hear absolutely nothing, then the ringing would begin in your ears. Through that ringing, you’d begin to make out voices, muffled. They’d clear, sometimes in a couple of minutes, sometimes it took hours. But the ringing, that could stay for days. It could stay forever if you were unlucky. I spoke to a British bloke one evening over a game of cards with some other guys, and he told me he had the ringing in his ears for months. 

On the bright side, however, he said that he was never bothered by  _ more  _ ringing from the bombing. On the bad side, it made sleeping hard as hell. 

I remember just before they shipped us out again from London -- we were on our way to the harbor. To get on another boat that would bring us through even more dangerous waters to Italy. Now, we weren’t facing just bombs from the sky, but also from submarines. 

Anyhow. On our way to the harbor, we walked past a bunch of collapsed homes. By one of those there was crying little girl. Couldn’t be more than four. She was wailing. The ugly sort of crying. The type of cry that I had seen my niece do when she hurt herself real bad. Her brother was standing in the middle of the rubble, trying to clear it for her. Then we realised that this little girl was crying for her cat. 

Either buried under brick and mortar, or scared away from the happenings in the city. They were alone, which made you wonder just where her parents were then. Unaccompanied children usually meant orphans. 

 

\--

 

Italy was worse. 

Italy was way worse. 

Whereas London had given me a taste of what the destruction of war could do to a civilization, Italy was going to show me just what  _ people _ could do to one another. 

Turns out, that killing another man isn’t easy to do. And the worst part is? Those who hold back, those who try not to do harm, those who don’t want to hurt but just want fight off are those who die. In war, it’s you or the other man in front of you. 

It’s overwhelming. I didn’t want to die. So yes, I killed men. I was trained as a sniper, so my first kills, I got that way. There was no option for me to miss. My superiors knew that I could handle the task that was given to me. I was the sergeant of a regiment. What good would I be if I couldn’t even snipe down a single head? I had to. You wind up justifying yourself when you land that bullet just right. 

When that happens, you tell yourself that it was me or them. When most of their head disappears when you shoot with slugs. Or when their head snaps back so violently it almost seems as if it breaks their necks, before falling through that mist of red that came from them. Me or them, me or them. And when it’s them, you tell yourself even more that you just shot a Nazi. Imagine what he would have done? Imagine what he would have done if you hadn’t stopped them. 

You couldn’t think about it the other way. Even if there was a little voice whispering to you in the back of your head that the kid you just shot? Maybe he got drafted just like me. Maybe he didn’t want to go, maybe he had to. Maybe he didn’t support the view of the Nazis. There were some sick fucks who had joined because they believed it, of course, but for every one that joined, there was one that was forced. 

You couldn’t think about that. You couldn’t allow yourself to realise that you might have shot an innocent man. 

Funnily, the more you do it, the more it numbs. Because war, just like hell, is timeless. 

You can spend ten years in it, and it will still feel like you’ve only spent a day in it. 

So the more you spend in it, the more time you spend blowing people’s head off. Bashing in their nose with the butt of your gun. Strangling them. Stabbing them. Throwing grenades at them. Seeing tanks being driven over people. The more you do it, the less it starts to phase you as long as you’re awake. Well, for most people. 

There were those who couldn’t handle it. Who just sat stared into nothingness. Who just… packed up in their minds and went elsewhere. Who would mumble so low that you wouldn’t make out what they said. Who would stand up in the midst of battle to shoot someone, and then just start to shake and freeze, becoming a target instead. Taking a bullet and being put out of their misery.

The odd part was, there was nothing shameful about it. People knew what sort of shit you saw, and people understood it wasn’t for everyone. The stench, the screams, the tears. 

Most, and I was one of those, would flinch the moment we heard a gun. I would dream such vivid dreams that I would wake up and not know, not understand how I had made it to wherever I was sleeping in the first place. Because moments earlier I had been in a clocktower with my sniper rifle, or out on the battlefield. Or at home, eating my mothers breakfast made for me. Or with Steve, smoking on the fire escape while he would draw me. 

My dreams were so real that I didn’t know what reality was at times, and what I was imagining. And maybe, it’s possible. Maybe that “dream” about where I was in the clocktower really happened, and maybe I had just simply forgotten the time it had taken me in between the clocktower to get to a battlefield. Maybe, for a day or two I was one of those people who just stared into absolute nothingness while moving around. Maybe I had been like a zombie. That happened too. 

 

\--

 

I met Timothy Dugan (this will be the first and last time I write his real name, from now on he’s Dum Dum or Dugan) and Gabe Jones on the battlefield. Dugan came from Boston, while Gabe came from Macon. Of course, neither of us had any chance to exchange any pleasantries with one another while we were busy getting shot at. 

The one bright side about war however, is if you’re on the same side with someone and you wind up sharing a trench, you have an instant pal. 

Dugan had done the brave thing, but not out of bravery. He had signed up to fight the war because it was right, and because the man enjoyed a good fight, but going out and causing said fights was not for him. So a war was perfect, he got to knock teeth in, and maybe walk home with a medal for bravery for doing so. 

Gabe told me he’d much rather wanted to be in charge of his own fate, so rather than waiting for the inevitable drafting, he enlisted instead. He went about it easy enough however, with an air around him that almost made it feel like he was just floating above everyone else. And he was by far much more sergeant material than me. Gabe, also, not so very surprising for the time and even less considering where he was from, had been placed in an segregated infantry. This segregation didn’t seem to bother him much, and if asked he would just shrug and say that he had learned not to expect much more than that. 

By pure coincidence, more controlled by our superiors than ourselves, we met in Italy, fighting off a bunch of Nazis and wound up in the same bomb pit together. Any battle has you repeating “This is it, this is it” in the back of your head. That battle surely would have been it for us. We were ridiculously outgunned, and the line that we had been pushing forwards bit by bit, day by day, would soon be lost to a German with a stupid-ass moustache. 

Until that is, another tank rolled in. A German Tank, leaving every single one of us thinking  _ well isn’t that just fucking great _ . It was great, for a grand total of ten seconds when this mother of a tank just started shooting at all the other Nazis, chasing them off but honestly, trying to leave none alive with weapons none of us had ever seen. 

They were a friend for a whole ten seconds before they turned on us. And once more,  _ this is it this is it _ started to run through my hand. That was not it, but I would come to wish it was. We weren’t captured by Nazis. We were captured by HYDRA. 

So we were taken, something which infuriated Dugan immensely, and sent to a factory of theirs in Austria. Turns out that the Nazi’s only really care about segregation when they’re trying to systematically mass murder you. Makes it easy for documentation. HYDRA, or Nazis, whatever the hell they were supposed to be at that time, we didn’t know, tossed all of us in a cell together. Not really caring of who wound up with who. 

Seeing Dugan, Gabe and I were captured on the top of the same little bomb pit, and we had pulled the instant friend against a common enemy card with one another, we were shoved in the same cell. That’s where we met the other men who would become Howling Commandos with us. 

There was Sam Sawyer, who has been captured along with parts of his unit, Jim Morita being one of those men. The two were polar opposites, whereas Sam was always the happy, smiling look on the bright side kind of guy, Morita was a cynic to his heart's content, always snarky, always looking at everything in the most pessimistic of ways. He claimed that it helped him cope with what was to come if he didn't have a clue. That he could turn around and say,  _ that wasn’t so bad. _

There was Junior Juniper, who probably realised he had made the biggest mistake of his life. The kid had just like Steve, lied on his enlistment forms, and altered his age. Unluckily for Juniper, the army had either not noticed, or taken him anyway. He was tall for a sixteen year old, muscular from years having spent rowing, so it wasn’t a wonder. Steve was furious when he found out. 

James Falsworth, who we nicknamed Monty, had been taken prisoner on the same battlefield as us, which we found a bit of an oddity considering most of us were Americans, and there he was the only British dude. He just shrugged and told us not to make fun of his accent and we would be fine. You can imagine just about how well that went. That lasted two days before we copied his, and he copied ours. 

Percival Pinkerton was the quiet one, he would just sit and watch the others next to Morita. He would only speak up when he felt like he had something to say, something of value that could contribute to the conversation. Whenever he did, of course, he startled all of us with the revelation that A. He had been listening to all of our bullshit all along. And B. The fucker was still there beside us, popping out of nowhere into existence. Pinky was the very definition of quiet. 

And then there was Jacques Dernier, a charmer in his own way. A French resistance member who had already spent some time in that facility and who with a shrug of his own, declared that he just really liked blowing up stuff. So why not blow up stuff for the good of mankind? It seemed that he could make a bomb out of anything, something we would often put to the test later in the future.

So there we were, a bundle of misfits all together in a tiny cell during the night, freezing with cold more often than not. Spending most of our hours awake building for HYDRA. 

 

\--

 

It’s almost surprising how long a man can survive without proper food or water. Hunger can be excruciating. It moves from mild discomfort, to something that you can’t push away in your mind, that you can’t ignore. To excruciating pain. 

Now don’t take me wrong, they did feed us. They did give us water. They had to. This wasn’t a death camp, this was a work camp, so they had to ensure that the people building that plane for them (Morita was the one who figured it out first) stayed alive. It wasn’t much. Most of the time it was just some broth and a bit of bread in the evenings before bed. So we at least could sleep with a somewhat full stomach and be rested come morning. 

Occasionally if we were lucky, we’d get a bit of meat in it. It almost became like a bit of a game, who got the bit of meat in their broth. They were deemed to have a good next day. More often than not however, we had to fix our own meat. 

There were rats scurrying everywhere, the trick was just catching one. Dugan much against his will with many loud complaints offered up his hat so we could trap rats. Then the problem was grabbing the rat without being bit. That didn’t always go so well, so we’d have small bite wounds on our hands and fingers. Yes, we had to eat bits of the rat raw. We didn’t exactly have a fire. Great way to get sick, we know, we got sick. 

Maybe that’s what made me collapse. I don’t know, there’s probably many variables to why I collapsed. I worked in intense heat, and in intense cold. I slept in both. I hadn’t been able to shower, to get washed properly. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since I left the US, I was only given water sparingly. I was cramped in a small space with a bunch of other men, no way comfortable to sit or sleep. I was tired, and either I slept for hours on end, and would have kept sleeping if I hadn’t been woken up. Or I didn’t sleep at all. I ate rats. I got sick. I had a fever. I got beaten up by a colonel when I couldn’t keep up the pace anymore. 

The other guys orchestrated an accident for Colonel Lohmer after he did that. I still tried to work, it was that or a gun to the back of my head. But I had broken fingers, broken ribs, I had a black eye even after the swelling had gone down. I had scabs from bites and wounds that wouldn’t heal. My head felt like busting all the time and my tongue was dry and felt twice the size. Every muscle in my body was burning, pushing itself to the furthest that it could. My brain trying desperately to keep me standing, to keep me from turning dizzy and faint. 

You can only push someone for so long until they can’t take it anymore. 

So I fell, and you know what? When I hit the ground I didn’t care. I didn’t care if they just left me be, or if they shot me or if they dragged me off. All I wanted to do at that moment was just rest. They let me rest, and then dragged me to the part of the facility where nobody ever came back from. But I still didn’t care. They tossed me in a cell and left me there. I slept. 

 

\--

 

Zola is still the face of my nightmares. 

Zola’s voice is what sends terror down my spine and makes me want to flee. 

He was a small man, and he looks innocent when you see old pictures of him. He’s not innocent. His touch, his accent, that disgusting smile of his is forever ingrained in my memory. One of the few things that was always there, that never left. The sheer terror of seeing him in a room beside me was more than enough to make me want to flee. To make me want to die. 

He was always soothing, always hushing me. 

_ Shh Sergeant Barnes, it will only sting for a moment.  _

_ Now Sergeant Barnes, please lay still, we need to hit your femoral artery just right.  _

_ I’m just placing a cloth on your head, Sergeant Barnes. _

_ This may make you feel quite ill Sergeant Barnes, so we will be strapping you to your side.  _

_ Shh, that cramp wasn’t so bad now was it, Mr. Barnes? _

_ We will have to take a spinal tap, Sergeant Barnes, please lay still.  _

_ It is interesting, Mr. Barnes, how your veins in your left arm bounce like this, they are slippery. _

_ Why of course it burns! _

_ Please don’t scream Sergeant Barnes.  _

_ I’m afraid your mother can’t help you now. _

_ Why are you begging, Sergeant Barnes? _

_ Put him in the chair.  _

All of that took place in just over a week, I learned later. It didn’t feel like it, it felt like an eternity. During the time that I had spent at war, I had never once cried. I hadn’t sobbed when I killed my first man or when I saw someone die in front of me. It took me less than a day with Zola and I was sobbing. I wanted to just curl up together and cry. But they had me strapped to a table, so I couldn’t. Instead, all I could do was just lay there as they had their way with me. With needles, tests, electric pulses to my brain, injections. 

They made me cramp, they made me have epileptic fits, they made me throw up what little I had in my stomach and then some. They brought my fever up to a 110. Then dragged it down again to 75 and leave me shiver, before yanking my body temperature back up to a 110 and keeping me there. They made me delirious. Maybe they made me see things that weren’t there, or maybe that was just an effect of all the experiments they were putting me through.

I know for certain, that I saw my mother by my side, brushing through my hair and putting that cold, wonderfully cold cloth to my forehead. She looked down to me and smiled, only to shimmer away and become one of the nurses.

I know I dreamt or saw, I honestly don’t know if I was awake or not, but I saw my father. He was telling me to be strong. To be like a man, to toughen it out, to make them work for it. But all I could do was cry. 

I heard my sister Doris, singing a lullaby to her daughter. I heard her sing to Lucy, and I imagined that she was singing for me as well. To relax me, to make me feel better. To let me know that she was there with me, and that she supported me. That there was someone, holding my hand through all this and whispering to me that it was alright.

I heard Steve. Through all of my daze, whatever dream or hallucination I had found myself lost in, there he was. There I could see Steve right in front of me, hear his voice. At first I thought he was another figment of my imagination. Like my mother, that he would touch me and he would shimmer away. Shimmer into someone else. 

I remember how heavy his hand felt against my shoulder. How he ripped those straps off me. He didn’t disappear. He remained there, strong and solid and lifted me of the table like I weighed nothing. Holding me up with such elegant ease. He had come for me. 

That whole moment was surreal. 

There he was, Steve Rogers. Taller, broader, and stronger than me. 

 

~~*~~

 

Bucky waited, impatiently, for Steve to finish reading the chapter. He felt nervous that Steve was reading it. The chapter would end with something they had never talked about. What Zola had done to him had been almost left unspoken. Steve had never pushed Bucky to talk about it, because it had been clear he hadn’t wanted to. 

Through the year and a half they had together after that, all through the time they had made for themselves now, Bucky still hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Not when he had started to unravel the memories bit by bit, figure out what they meant. Puzzled them together. He still hadn’t told Steve. 

He had told Namazzi. He had told her what felt like a million things he hadn’t shared with Steve. She had helped him process everything. Helped him accept what happened, and helped him work through it all. None of it had been in his power to change. He had accepted that. He had come to terms with what Zola had done to him, all while still hating the man. 

This was different. This was bleeding out his secrets on paper for the world to read. First to Steve, and then, if there even was a publisher out there who wanted to put that story into a book, to the world. That had been his plan all along, had it not?

To tell the world? To set the record straight?

For that to be able to happen, Steve had to read it first. Bucky wanted to share that with Steve. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to tell Steve himself, word for word while sitting in front of him. He knew that the words would suffocate in his throat, die there, and that he would cry. 

He had accepted it, mostly. But that didn’t mean that it stopped being a trauma. 

That was what Namazzi had taught him. He had trauma. Not just one, not two, Bucky had gone through several traumas in his life. He would have to work to not make his life revolve around those traumas, but they would always be there. So far, he thought he had done a pretty good job. The road to recovery wasn’t straight, there were turns and intersections, and sometimes even a dead end. Bucky had managed to find his way, for the most part. 

He waited impatiently for Steve to finish reading the secret he’d kept so close to his chest. He waited, for the guilt and for the tears that he knew Steve would inevitably have. 

Bucky waited for two hours in the living room, sitting in the couch and absentmindedly patting Roxy. He was good at waiting. He had learned that a long time ago. It didn’t bother him to sit in silence while he waited, listening to Steve flick through the papers in the kitchen. He waited for the screech of the chair. The hint that Steve was finished. 

There it was. 

With a gentle push, Bucky shoved Roxy off the couch and freed up the space for Steve. Sure enough, Steve sat down beside Bucky, hands empty and instantly turned to him and put his arms around Bucky’s neck. 

“It’s okay,” Bucky whispered, moving his own arms around Steve’s back, holding him tight to show that there was truth to his words. He felt guilty as Steve’s shoulders shook, knowing that his story had made Steve cry again as he sobbed into his sweater. “It’s okay,” Bucky whispered again, pressing a kiss to the side of Steve’s head. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Steve mumbled in between his sobs, muffled against Bucky’s shoulder and clothes. Bucky brushed his fingers through Steve’s hair again. “I should’ve come and saved you sooner.” 

“You didn’t know, Steve,” Bucky whispered in response. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m here now.” Bucky shifted in the couch, pulling down Steve to lay with him. Steve could hold him for as long as he needed to, and Bucky would be there for him. 


	7. Captain Fucking America

“You feeling any better?” Bucky asked, voice soft as he gently stroked his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve was stroking Bucky’s side, and he tried hard not to jerk away at the tickling sensation. His henley offered only so much protection from the touch. 

“A bit,” Steve sniffed, then rearranged himself in the bed. Most of the time Bucky was the one cuddling up to Steve. Grabbing hold of him in his sleep and not letting go. Sleeping like rock against his furnace-like body. Keeping him warm and safe in the middle of the night. “Didn’t sleep so good though.” 

Bucky snorted softly. Pressing a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “Kind of figured,” Bucky told him. While Steve had been the one to koala that night, he had also been sleeping restlessly. Kicking Bucky on a couple of occasions. Moving away, then moving back in, then back away again. Mumbling incoherently in his sleep. Words Bucky couldn’t even make out, despite knowing him so well. 

“Kept dreaming all night,” Steve confessed. Bucky hummed his response, attempting to crane his neck a bit so he could look at Steve. It didn’t help, Steve was resting his head on Bucky’s chest, hidden away from him. 

“You’ll sleep better tonight,” Bucky assured him, knowing without asking what Steve had spent the night dreaming of. Zola. He had dreamt of what Zola had done to Bucky. “D’you want me to make you some breakfast?” 

“Yeah,” Steve sounded a bit brighter. “I’ll handle the goats and the chickens and all. See if we got any eggs. Let the dogs out, too.” Steve made a gesture with his hand, claiming the tasks that Bucky usually did in the morning. 

“Okay,” He agreed, knowing that Steve would need something to focus on until he could stuff his mouth full with food. His thoughts would be pacing, and the sooner he set that mind of his busy with either a mindless task like feeding the goats and chickens, or with a task that would require utmost focus like painting, the sooner he would feel better. The sooner he would be able to leave chapter six and Zola behind him. 

Steve stirred in bed, moving off Bucky’s chest and sitting up to stretch out his back. Bucky watched his muscles move under the skin, stroking his fingers over them. “Hey Steve?” Bucky asked carefully. Steve turned to look at him. Hair flat on one side of his head from laying against Bucky’s chest, and the other side standing wild from Bucky’s fingers. His beard even looked a bit scruffy. Bucky couldn’t help but smile at the sight. 

He reached up to brush his thumb over the corner of Steve’s mouth. Steve took his hand and kissed his palm. “What?”

“I got dancing tonight. Is it okay if I go? Or would you rather me stay home?” Bucky asked, trying desperately not to sound hopeful. But it seeped through, which meant Steve would be able to hear it. 

He smiled at him, leaned in and kissed Bucky on his forehead. “You go dancing. I’ll be fine by tonight.” Then Steve let go of Bucky’s hand and slid out of the bed. “I’m gonna go and look after the goats now. Make me waffles?” Steve asked, looking almost childish as he asked. 

Bucky laughed. “Yeah alright, I’ll make you waffles, if you bring me eggs.” 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 7 - Captain Fucking America**

 

Now you have to understand, during all my time in Italy, I had never once heard about Captain America. Well, I had heard the name be thrown around a few times. But I had no clue that Captain America was _ Steve Rogers.  _ My Steve Rogers.

And it was as if it was a fucking omen. That the moment when Steve would appear in front of me for the first time, revealing himself as Captain America would be during a moment where I couldn’t scold him for it. Shout at him for it or even throw a weak-ass punch to his arm that now wouldn’t bruise anymore, that he wouldn’t even feel anymore. 

We didn’t have some heartfilled reunion. I just realised that I wasn’t hallucinating Steve. And that the entire prison-base that had been keeping me captive was about to blow or had already blown. And for the first time in my life Steve just hauled me up and dragged me out of there. 

I could barely walk, mind you. I was still seeing stars. I kept tripping over my own feet and I’m pretty sure I was still bleeding somewhere from an injection they gave me. My spine and my skull still hurt like a bitch from the spinal tap. My muscles weren’t on fire from what they had injected me with, but they felt stiff, clenched up from one of the epileptic cramps they had given me. It felt as if I might just break if I pushed myself too hard.

We didn’t know then, but Zola had been attempting to recreate the serum that was used on Steve, so HYDRA could make their own version of super soldiers. That was what happened with the people who disappeared to the isolation ward where they had dragged me off to. The people who didn’t come back from there. The people who were experimented on like rats and rabbits in a lab. That was what they all suffered through until they died. I was just the only one who lived. 

I didn’t die, but what I didn’t know was that the concoction that Zola had managed to conjure up worked to a certain extent. That was the stiffness that I felt, which never fully left, which would forever coil under my skin. 

There was no time to talk to Steve about any of this. Shit was blowing up left and right and things were on fire. It wasn’t the time to ask what had been done to Steve, and he didn’t have the time to ask me what they had done to me. I wouldn’t have answered him even if he did. 

Steve lead us through the facility as it fell down around us. Because of the rapidly-growing fire, we had to climb higher and higher. The only way out was through the roof. And for once, my fear of heights didn’t really bother me -- there were far more important things to care about. 

It’s funny in hindsight, how we came to meet Johann Schmidt and Zola again. You could almost call it a show-off in a movie. There we were, as high as we could go in the facility. Johan and Zola on one end of the bridge, and us on the other. Steve had some smartass back-and-forth with the man that I honestly didn’t really listen to. I was too busy trying to keep myself from being sick to my stomach at the sight of Zola, whose little rat eyes wouldn’t look away from me. 

Steve, of course, must have said something to annoy Johann. Because like the idiot that Steve is, they were fighting on the bridge. It teared my focus away from Zola, because Steve, big as he was, could still slide in between the metal bars and fall into the inferno below us. 

Instead, this is what happened:

The Red Skull showed to us exactly how he got his name. He tore off a mask, revealing a red skull underneath. Very creative, I know. What on earth do you want me to say? His head was shaped like a skull, lacking a nose, and was red. I was half-convinced that I was dreaming up the whole thing. Until Steve confirmed to me later on, that no, I hadn’t dreamt up jack shit. 

Johann Schmidt had pulled off a mask and revealed a red skull. Claiming that he was the first of Erskine’s little experiments. See now why I still find that German man creepy? He created that, and Steve had entrusted himself in his hands. Sure, Steve didn’t know this, but it just shows that you have to check a resume through and through before hiring someone. Now I know the circumstances, he was forced to create Johann and shit went haywire. 

But what if the serum hadn’t worked on Steve? What if he had turned out like the Red Skull?

One thing is for certain, the serum might have cured Steve of a lot of his ailments and helped him reach peak physiology, but it sure as hell didn’t cure the dumbass part of him. 

The sneaky little fuckers -- Zola and Schmidt -- got away of course. Nothing in life is easy. We had to focus on getting back out, we couldn’t just stay there. We would have literally been toast. So we continued our trek upwards, where there was another bridge for us to cross. I learned at that point that whatever Steve had done to himself hadn’t taken away the dumbass out of him.

Because life is a dick, our only way across turned out to just be a simple fucking bar across said inferno we were trying to escape from. Thank fuck I was still dazed from whatever HYDRA had injected me with, the height didn’t phase me, the fire didn’t even phase me. Was I standing stable enough on my legs to make it across? Hell no, I don’t know how I did it, but I did it. 

And because life is not just a dick, but also a grande A+ asshole that hasn’t been washed for a decade, the bar gave way after me, leaving Steve stuck on the other side. This is how I knew he was still a dumbass. 

The fucker jumped. 

 

\--

 

I honestly can’t tell you how we escaped that base. I wasn’t paying enough attention. I couldn’t focus. All I looked at was Steve, Steve’s back as he guided me through hell. And then all of a sudden we’re sliding down something and land in gravel. Hard. 

We were among friends, though. Steve had set free the other prisoners, my friends in war. They had done exactly what Steve had asked them to do, too. They raised hell and had taken out as many of the Nazi fuckers as they could. 

With our newfound freedom, we started a long walk from Austria back to Italy. Manageable, but many of us weren’t exactly in the best shape to be walking. So we did the best we could and stole a couple of trucks. Dugan had commandeered a tank that would in modern times be called one hell of a dick extension, but he loved that tank for the full three days he got to drive it. 

I slept in it, after Gabe and Steve dragged me into it. I couldn’t stand on my legs any longer. The moment they laid me back down, I fell asleep. I must have slept for a long time, because Steve was worried by the time that I woke up. I told him I was fine, he wasn’t buying it of course, but what else was I supposed to tell him? 

I did feel better after sleep, though. There had been no one poking and prodding at me, playing with my body temperature or injecting me with shit or tazing me. I had been allowed to actually rest. Boy, did that feel magnificent. I still felt like shit by the time that I woke up, but less so. I was good enough to walk the rest of the way. Good enough to even help the guys pull someone up in the tank for some rest. 

We talked, Steve and I. Mostly about the serum, what he had let people do to him in hope of a shot at war. In hope of being able to come over to Europe and serve his country, serve the world. Make it a better place. It was a lot to take in, I’m sure you can imagine. Most of you who are reading this book now exactly how Captain America looks, and his picture of before the serum is in your school books. You know, that he suddenly weighed 150 lbs more, that he nearly was a foot taller. 

I was the only one of the guys who could see the difference, feel the difference. For them he was always Captain America, he had waltzed in as Captain America, introduced himself in the heat of the moment as it. For them he had always been 240 lbs and six foot two. 

None of them had ever seen Steve barely reach 100 lbs, none of them had ever looked down on Steve. All of a sudden, I was looking up to him. All of a sudden, he outweighed me, a welterweight boxer. And on top of that, I’m sure I had lost weight in captivity. Now he outweighed me by at least a 100 lbs. 

Despite all these physical changes, Steve was still… Steve. 

He was still sweet, he still had that awkward laugh. He still tried to push my buttons. And he still told people to shut up when they were being assholes. The difference was now people actually listened to him. 

He was different, but at the core he was still  _ my Steve. _ Wearing an absolutely ridiculous outfit. 

It did make his ass look great though. 

He looked after me, because he could tell I still wasn’t well. I was better, but not well. So he pestered me to drink. To occasionally ride on the truck to get some sleep. If we had food, he would have offered it to me, I’m sure. You try finding food for 400 men in the middle of the woods, driving through it with tanks and trucks. Any chance of even finding an animal to kill was gone before we even started moving. 

I didn’t want Steve in Europe, I didn’t want him there fighting a war that wasn’t his, and maybe having to lay down his life for it. But at that moment I was glad that he was there. I was glad that he walked by my side, supported me when I needed it. I was glad that he persisted I ride in the truck even if I was a stubborn bastard who refused. I was glad he stayed behind when I had to throw up, and never once commented on it because he knew it would make me mad. I’m glad he was there within reach when I reached some breakdown over what HYDRA had done to me. Over what I had been through since arriving to Europe. Yet he never pushed or asked. Instead, what he did was reassure me of his presence while I worked through my sobs on my own in the woods. I’m glad Steve was there in the middle of the night when I shot awake from nightmares.

Steve was there for me when I needed him the most. 

Sure, I had the others as well. Dugan, Gabe, Morita, Falsworth and so on. But I think they somehow realised that I needed to be with the friend that I had told them about. They stayed near, and interacted with us on several occasions, but none of us actually sat down and talked. It was mostly to ask what Steve wanted to do next, which direction to go. Because there he was, shining bright, taking on the natural leader role he was always meant to carry. 

We reached base, and I just knew, I just knew he was going to rub it in the Colonel’s face like only Steve Rogers can do. 

And he did, the cocky little shit. But he didn’t nearly get the praise he deserved. Sure, the Colonel had a face to keep, a reputation. I get that. But Steve had just saved roughly 400 lives by risking his own. He deserved a round of applause, because I was so fucking proud of him. His mother would have been proud of him. His father. My father. My mother. My sisters. Anyone who ever had the pleasure of knowing Steve would feel a sense of pride. So I started one for him. 

I was so proud. I realised he had grown up. It was such a bittersweet moment, realizing that most likely, he wouldn’t need me looking out for him anymore. That he could do whatever he wanted. I realised that. 

I realised Steve wasn’t mine and mine alone anymore. That I had to share him with the world.

I also realised that I had to tell him I loved him. I had nearly died, what else did I have to lose? I had no more excuses. 

 

\--

 

But first, I found out about Captain America. 

We were granted a bit of leave, all of us after what we were put through. They shipped us all back to London while they decided what to do with us. The camp couldn’t handle such an influx of people, so they had to find another place for us so they could manage the soldiers that could actually fight in the first place. 

However, Steve had left his tour in such a hurry, that the camp was still very much decorated for Captain America’s little motivation tour through the troops. 

The show girls were still there, the posters were still there. And of course, he was still wearing that uniform of his. We didn’t let him hear the end of it. It was a chance for Steve to get to know the boys a bit more, all while we teased him about doing silly routines on a stage motivate the public to help. To keep spirits lifted. 

It was the best I had felt in a long time, now in fresh warm clothes, with a proper meal in me. Despite that, I was still starving. Despite the nerves that were still trembling under my skin, I laughed when I saw those posters. I laughed when I imagined the routines that he had to do and how stupid he must have looked. 

Because you’ve got to remember, I had only heard of Captain America by word. I hadn’t even seen a hint of a picture, a hint of a show. There it was all in front of me all at once and I just… couldn’t contain it. It was hysterical. Sorry Steve, but it was fucking hilarious. 

I tried desperately to get him to do the routine. I could count the amount of times I had seen Steve dance on one hand. And now he had an entire show? I couldn’t help it, I pestered him and I prodded him, I whined and I complained. He wouldn’t show it, but laughed while he told me no. 

It was two wonderful days, where despite the fact that we were in a military camp it didn’t feel like there was a war going on. It was just us, and instead of roaming Brooklyn, we roamed the camp. I introduced Steve to the other guys properly this time, so he knew them by name and not just by face. We sat together one evening in a tent, eating and talking to one another. Joking as if none of what we had been through had ever happened. 

Steve kept giving me his food, and I ate it all. No matter what I ate or drank, there was that searing pang of hunger still in my stomach, which wasn’t that surprising. I threw up half of what I ate, and the other half that I ate instantly became fuel to my body, trying to maintain the injections that Zola had put in me. Trying to come to some level of peace, trying to fight it off, trying to mold with it. I don’t know what the hell it was doing. But I could feel that whatever they had done to me, that my body was trying to fight it. 

I know this, because throughout the entire thing, the entire wait still at the base, and two, three good weeks after that, I still ran a low fever. But this isn’t about what Zola did to me in detail, that’s for later. 

Steve was there through it all still, having my back and supporting me through it all. Talking me out of nightmares and pretending he didn’t hear my breakdowns at moments. Rubbing my back when I was throwing up and repeatedly telling me to take it easy. I kept telling him that there was no way to take it easy. For as long as we were in Italy we were at risk, and I think some part of him released that. 

Steve didn’t get disciplinary action for what he had done. He had gone against orders and went into enemy territory, he probably broke a bunch of laws in the process while doing so. Now that he’d gotten his first taste for war there was no way that he was going to get back up on a stage, do stupid songs and stupid dances like a propaganda machine. That wasn’t why he’d joined the army. He had joined the army to fight the Nazis, and now when it became clear that HYDRA was a bigger threat, he wanted to fight them. He wanted to do good. 

He already had done good, but taking out one mission base wasn’t enough. It would have been enough for some people. Hell, for saving us 400 at the HYDRA base, Senator Brandt petitioned to award him the Medal of Honor, and he got the petition through. That would have been it for some people, they would have shown up at the award ceremony, accepted it, and then backed the hell out of war because they had done their part in their opinion. 

War is just as selfish as it is selfless. But first and foremost, it’s all about survival. 

Steve wasn’t one of those people. Steve was the selfless one. He didn’t bother with the medal. Hell, it wasn’t even important to him, he didn’t fucking care. Because in his opinion, he had just made the choice that he could sleep with at night. He had done the right thing and set out to help us, to liberate us and to save me. 

And now, after having pulled a stunt like that, he realised he had the power to do more. That he as a figure, that he as Captain America, could do so much more than just sing and dance. He was a super soldier, so he wanted to be just that, and he wanted to help save the world. 

He didn’t say it outright; Steve is smarter than that. He didn’t just walk up to the Colonel and asked to be put back by the frontlines. Instead what he did was drop little hints everywhere. Plant little seeds. Made himself known amongst the men that he had rescued (and he that he’d done this because he  _ wanted _ to make sure they were alright) and made them feel like he was a soul they wanted to follow. When there were so many who just wanted to tuck tail and run during our leave. 

I was one of them, and I knew that if there was a person to have  _ any _ chance to pull Steve away from the path that he was about to take, it would be me. But even that was unlikely. Steve had always been headstrong, and there were times where he just downright chose not to listen to me. 

And this, this was something he had wanted to do ever since the States had joined the war. Something he had tried for years to enlist for under fake names and fake hometowns. Like fucking New Jersey. And now he had it in the palms of his hands. There was no way that he was going to let that go just because I asked. 

I mentioned I realised that he had grown up, didn’t I? That he now would have the chance to walk the path that he had been dreaming of for years and that there would be no one there to stop him from doing so. Steve must have realised that himself, he must have realised that the serum had brought forward a new way that he carried himself with ease, and it wasn’t just in his gait. The confidence that he always had carried within him, was now matched by a body that could hold it, that could hold him. 

So it was difficult, watching him move around camp, talking to the guys, planting those little seeds amongst people, plotting and planning in a way that he wasn’t sharing with me. Because I knew that if he asked me, that I would follow him. No matter what they had put me through, no matter what they had done to me, I still would follow Steve into the jaws of death. 

He didn’t need me to watch his back anymore, not the same way. I was going to do it anyway. He was my friend. Now I had a different motivation to keep fighting, because I had to make sure that we both would come home together. 

I still had to tell him that I loved him. I was still waiting for the right moment. Still trying to decide on how to go about it. How to bring up the topic with him. I was rehearsing speeches in my head over and over. I decided that I would tell when we were in London, during our leave. No more excuses, and with that I had a odd new sort of bravery, that of a man who had lived against all odds. 

Now I know I said this once before that I was going to tell him. At the advice of Minnie on my last day, during the expo. You’ll know if you haven’t been skipping ahead on some chapters. So for those of you wondering if I’m going to bail out again at the last moment? All I got to say is no. I felt myself that this was different. This was something locked in my chest. 

Yes, I was still afraid of the idea of doing so, but I had a different sort of determination. During the Expo, I had been wracking my nerves over when the right moment was supposed to be, when I would speak up and tell Steve. Trying to be some sort of proper judge on that. This wasn’t the case. When we boarded the boat that would take us all to England, I was walking behind Steve, and I remember looking at his shoulders and knowing to my fingertips, knowing in my heart and in my head that within a week Steve would know. 

Knowing that if the right moment didn’t fall into our laps, I would just grab Steve by his arm, tell him I wanted to talk to him alone and I would make that moment myself. I would take the fallout of it however it came to me. 

 

\--

 

In London, they told Steve that they would send him back to the front. They also told Steve that he would need a team. They couldn’t just put him in a unit. A unit would hold him back, they realised. So he needed a specialised team, and they had already pulled out a bunch of folders of people that they recommended for him. 

Sneaky little Steve, informed them that he already had been putting together a team. He hadn’t proposed the idea to them yet, but he knew who he wanted by his side. He wanted the people that he had bonded with at the camp in Italy, he wanted some of the people that he had saved. Who he had laughed with and befriended. 

Steve’s superiors would have to approve of the men he had chosen. There were a few minor objections, but Steve made his point clear and won. Now all that was left for Steve to do was to ask them if they wanted to walk by his side for what was to come. He didn’t want them to feel forced, because he knew that it would be riskier than just fighting a war. He would be focusing on the other bases that he had seen on the map in Austria. He would be focusing on HYDRA. 

As a return, HYDRA would most likely breathe fire down Steve’s neck. 

So we were in this little pub in London, a still standing one full of celebration. Being able to relax and let go for a bit. Steve sat in the bar around some of the men, and proposed his idea. He didn’t sugar coat it. Steve isn’t a liar. He told them exactly what he planned to do, and to who he planned to do it to. 

I wanted him to have men around him that I could trust and helped Steve assemble the guys, rather than men assembled by superiors who didn’t really have a clue of how Steve really was. They still saw him as a propaganda puppy, who they still believed they could twist in certain ways to make him do what they wanted him to do. 

Now with Steve having leeway and some freedom however, that was about as far away from the truth as it could get. Steve needed the right sort of men beside him. 

The men that he asked are all names you know. The Howling Commandos was created that night. It started out as Steve, Dugan, Gabe, Morita, Falsworth and Dernier. They were the original six of The Howling Commandos. 

After that, Steve came to find me deeper down in the bar. Because the front was to loud, to cramped and I was still to fucking aware of my body and everyone’s body. My ears hurt and everything sounded sharp. I still had that fever and it was just too damn hot. I didn’t want to be out front. I was in the back. Drinking whiskey after whiskey and finding that I could take more than I usually did. 

More than I should for someone who was still bordering on malnourished, more than I should for being sick. But I didn’t care. I still got a little bit buzzed, because the serum I had gotten wasn’t completed. I still had a lucky few months ahead of me where I was able to get drunk and I was using them. I was at peace, it was quiet, alone, and Steve would come to me when he was done. I knew that, because I knew he was going to ask me to follow him and I knew that I would tell him yes.

But I had also decided that tonight would be the night, the night that I told him. Hence my drinking. I needed some liquid courage, can you blame me? I still hadn't quite decided on how to go about it. I had figured out, however, that I needed to be bold. Steve was clever, but he could be just as thickheaded. 

I was going to be bold, and drop comments. Maybe judge his reaction based on that and decide on how to go about it. 

Sure enough, after Steve had asked the others to join him and they had become the original Commandos, Steve came and searched me out. Not surprisingly, he asked if I would come along with him, if I would become a Howling Commando. 

I wasn’t planning on following Captain America to war, and I told him such. But I told him that I planned on following my friend. There would be no more leave for me, I wouldn’t figure out a way to get discharged, I wouldn’t go back to Brooklyn and go home to my mother and my father, to my sisters. I was going to stay. I was going to make sure that Steve was safe. 

And then, slightly drunk from the whiskey, I leaned forward and made my first attempt known that I loved him. I cringe a little bit when I think about it now, but at the time it flowed out of me as if it was the most natural statement of all. I asked Steve if he was going to keep the suit. 

Because his ass was, well. Fucking amazing. 

Steve gave me a look as if to say  _ oh you bastard, _ and I realised he thought that I was just fucking with him while I was dead serious. I’d always liked a man in a uniform. To have Steve in a uniform was like fucking heaven to me. 

My first attempt failed, and then crashed and burned into the ground when Peggy Carter made her appearance. 

Peggy Carter, with her red dress and her beautiful brown hair. Lips alone that made men weak and deep, dark eyes, a cunning smile on her features. She ignored everyone else in the bar, she had come for Steve and Steve alone. I knew just watching her that she didn’t look at him like everyone else was. She didn’t look at him like a bag of delicious steaks for her to devour like most women did now. She didn’t look at him like the men did, who thought  _ this is a man _ now when they felt small for the first time in their life beside him.

This was a woman who saw Steve the same way that I had done before the serum. Who had even looked past his small, sickly and frail body. Who had instantly seen Steve for the golden-hearted lion that he was, the boy who wanted to save the world and do good to it. She saw all of that, she saw through Steve then and saw him for who he was, and a new body and a new title as Captain America didn’t cloud her vision of him. 

I instantly hated her for it. 

Remember back in Chapter Four, when I asked you to remember how I dragged Steve along to meet girls in the hopes that one of them would see Steve for who he was and that he could find happiness? He had that option with Peggy, and the moment that a woman actually looked at him like that I was filled to the brim with jealousy and possessiveness. 

Here was a woman who did just everything I had hoped someone would ever do to Steve, because he deserved it. He truly did! But she had come along at all the wrong moment for that, just when I decided to tell him, to share my heart and my feelings for him. That very same evening and then she parades in and he’s all eyes for her. I wanted to tell her to fuck off right then and there, she had nothing to do here. Steve wasn’t hers, he was mine. 

So there I was, at risk of losing him before I had even had him. 

It wasn’t right, so I did the first thing that came to mind. And that was, shamefully I will admit, flirt with her myself in the most sleazy damn way I could think off. In the hope that all she would do was turn her nose up in disgust and leave us be. I wanted to chase her away. I’m fully honest about that. And you want to know the truth? I don’t regret it one bit. 

Peggy was a wonderful woman, yes there’s no denying that. What I did by coming on to her like that was bastardly of me, yes I admit that too. Jealousy isn’t flattering. It’s nasty with it’s million green heads turning all at once, forked tongues in between fangs. It makes people do things they otherwise wouldn’t. It doesn’t excuse my actions. I don’t expect it to. I don’t want it to either. 

But Steve was meant to be mine, or at least, Steve was going to be mine until I confessed up. And if he didn’t want me, then I would back off. Hurt and with a tail tucked in between my legs, crawling off in some corner to lick my wounds. I wouldn’t come in between them then, if they wanted one another. I promised that to myself. Just because Steve didn’t want to have me didn’t mean he would never get to have anyone at all. I would hate it, with all my guts twisting inside of me, but I promised myself, I’d never come in between Steve and his happiness. 

The sleazy pick-up lines I tried on Peggy just dripped right off her. She turned a complete deaf ear to me and treated me like everyone else in the bar. She hadn’t come there for me, or anyone else, and therefore I might as well just be a human vase. It infuriated me, and filled me with such dread that I feared this was a losing battle. Because Steve was all for Peggy, the way he looked at her like that… 

It was a sort of look I had never seen before. Never once had Steve looked at anyone like that, not to my knowledge. I didn’t just have one sinking stone in my stomach. I had several, all smooth from years and years from being pushed up against one another, scraping one another until all that was left was a soft touch. . 

She left. Steve stayed beside me. There was tension in the air between them. I ordered another drink for more liquid courage, like the coward that I am. I drank four more. I didn’t get drunk. The buzz still ran through my veins and through my arteries. 

The buzz did make me feel slightly more courageous, so I kept that up while I waited. Because the bar wasn’t the best place. Not with the newly founding Howling Commandos celebrating and Steve joining them, with me joining them. But I was going to tell him. All evening and all night long I watched him, and I told myself over and over  _ I’m going to tell him I’m going to tell him _ like an echo talking to itself over and over. 

My heart was pounding in my chest, the blood rushed through my body and I could feel the thump of my capillaries in my fingertips and toes, I could feel the blood rush in my ears, in my neck. And I remember looking at Steve’s lips, wondering if I’d get to kiss them. 

It was late when the bar finally closed. Must have been in between two or three in the morning when everybody was back on the streets. I’m not certain on the exact time. I remember looking at my watch, but all I can remember of is how the watch was cracked. 

The Howling Commandos split up, we each went our own ways to bed, with the promise that our first official meeting wouldn’t be until late in the afternoon, when we had slept off our hangovers and headaches. Together with Steve, I walked through the city of London. 

I don’t remember what we were talking about, something unimportant. Small talk. 

The streets were abandoned, and it was just us. We had all the privacy of the world but I wanted more. So I dragged Steve into the ruins of a bombed home, telling him I wanted to show him something. I don’t know where that little lie came from, but it worked. We still had some form of peace in between the rubble. There was still a half standing wall shielding us from the street and prying eyes, or other drunken soldiers walking by. The back of the house was fully knocked down. Remnants of a kitchen scattered in stone out to the yard, wood splintered, we could see the night sky, even if it wasn’t much to see that evening. It was dark, no moon out, barely a hint of stars. 

I remember pressing against a wall with my hand, to see if it would shift under the pressure, it didn’t, so I leaned against it. Steve looked at me in confusion, blue eyes glittering in the dark as he asked what I wanted to show him. I blurted out that I had lied. He looked at me in such confusion. I laughed and looked down to my feet. Kicked at a brick. I told him that I needed to talk to him. 

“Okay.” I remember Steve saying, nodding and suddenly all serious. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting what I had in mind to tell him. I’m sure he thought that this was where I was going to tell him what wasn’t right with me. Because he had been by my side through it all, you know that now. You know that I had not once shared what was wrong with me. I took a breath, and my head ran the same damn words over and over on repeat. 

_ Tell him tell him tell him I love you tell him I love you I love you tell him. _

The realisation hit me that I had no clue on how to tell him. I was afraid. The moving pictures and the books that I had read all made confessing one's love for someone seem so easy. You just knew that those two people were destined for each other. The words would be spilled and they’d both collapse in one another’s arms like they were made for each other. There’d be a sigh of an  _ oh Jerry _ and then a kiss like none they’d ever had in their entire lives. 

It was childish perhaps of me to wonder, if my confession would have the same sort of result. But this was real life, and real life isn’t as easy as in the pictures. 

The dreaded  _ what if _ started to seep into my clothes. Into my soul. The worry started to spread. What if he wouldn’t want me, what if he wanted Peggy? What if after he politely turned me down, he’d go and find her instead? What if he wouldn’t politely turn me down? What if there would be screams and anger? What if he never wanted to see me again?

Steve, of course, from my silence and me just staring at him like that grew worried. Wanted to make sure that I was alright, grew worried about what I was going to tell him. 

So I repeated myself. Told him that I needed to tell him something, and that this… might be an oddity to hear. That I asked of him to be understanding, but that I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy thing to hear. Then I just started rambling. 

Pent up feelings and emotions that had been building for over a decade. Telling Steve how much he meant to me, as a friend, how much his presence in my life had shaped who I was. How life wouldn’t be the same without him. That I didn’t want to lose him, and putting so much pressure on the fact that I didn’t want to lose him.

Somewhere along those lines, I think that Steve must have realised what I was trying to tell him. He grew fidgety, looked at everything in the rubble but me. Sucked on his lower lip and cast his eyes on the sky. I remember that I had to ask him to look at me. Look me in my eyes. He did, tearing them away from whatever he was looking at, lip still in his mouth and he looked at me with those wonderful eyes of his. 

“Steve, I love you.” The words were simultaneously the easiest ones I’ve ever spoken in my entire life, and the hardest. 

It was a relief to finally tell him. 

For a whole five seconds. 

Because all Steve did was stare at me. His expression didn’t change, and then he stared a moment longer. Before finally shaking his head and taking just one heartbreaking step back. A distance I instantly wanted to close in on. 

“No,” he said. “No, you’re messing with me.”

I couldn’t believe him. I couldn’t believe he’d think that I do that. A part of me was angry, how could I not be? Here I was confessing to something that I had been ashamed of for years, and Steve thought I was kidding. So I had to convince him otherwise. I had to convince him one way or another that I loved him with all my heart and being and that we belonged together, or at least we did according to my dreams. 

So I gave him a quick and feverish explanation, wanting Steve to know before he’d have the chance to turn and leave. I begged him to stay, I grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him back and it just, started spilling out of me. Of how I fell in love with him, all I admired and all I adored of him. And how I absolutely wasn’t messing with him, that he knew how I looked when I was messing with him and this was not it. This was me being genuinely serious with him. 

From that, his blank, almost surprised and dumb expression changed. It started to crack and open up, he started to smile, wider and wider and he was like the freaking sun illuminating everything all at once. 

“I love you, too.”

Everything just fell into place. My confession had coaxed Steve to share his, and he loved me just as much as I loved him. 

I grabbed him by that uniform, yanked him in and kissed him. It was the best fucking kiss of my life. 

 

~~*~~

 

It was dark by the time that Bucky pulled into the driveway. The heat of the bright day had settled a bit, and now left a comfortable warmth that draped over him like a blanket when he stepped out of his truck. He could hear crickets in the distance. 

The back lights were lit up, so Bucky didn't bother to go inside. Draping his bag over his shoulder, he stepped around the house and to the back where their backyard and the pool were. Steve was sitting in a chair by the edge of the water, and Winnie, not so surprisingly, was swimming around in it. The glass door to their living room was wide open, and music was playing. 

Roxy, content from her spot beside Steve got up and ran over to Bucky, her tail wagging enough to make her entire behind move. “Hello, my sweet girl,” Bucky preened to her and knelt down to hug her. She instantly started licking his face, and whatever ball that Winnie had been chasing in the pool was instantly forgotten. Soon Bucky heard the wet paws on the stone tiles as she too raced over to them and slammed with her wet body into him. Shook herself out and then attempted to get in between Bucky and Roxy. 

Bucky shrieked, feeling the cold water seep into his clothes. From his chair, Steve just laughed and offered no assistance. 

“You’re no help!” Bucky called out to him with a huff, standing up in the hopes that he’d be able to stay dryer. Winnie only attempted to jump up with him, so he found that wasn’t the case. “Yes hi, hello, I love you, too,” Bucky told her and gently shoving her back to the ground. “Go back to the pool, go swim,” Bucky said in an excitable voice and pointed over to the pool again. Winnie raced back to it and jumped in. 

“How was dancing? Did you have fun?” Steve offered Bucky a taste of his beer while Bucky dragged a chair beside him. 

“Yeah it was nice, we did some bugg today, Swedish style. Was fun. Was real fast, too, when we got the basics down. Not that different from what we danced back in the day,” Bucky took a swig of the beer and handed it back. A beer did nothing against them with alcohol, but that didn’t stop them from still enjoying the taste of it. 

“From what  _ you  _ danced back in the day you mean?” Steve snorted and leant forward as Winnie brought him the bright red ball, only coming up the first few steps of the pool and dropping it. She looked expectantly at him. Steve obediently picked up the ball and tossed it back into the water. Roxy came and settled beside Bucky, laying down underneath his legs. 

“What about you? What did you do with your evening alone?” Bucky asked, watching how Winnie swam around in the water with ease, but had trouble catching the ball with the ripples she made. His dancing class usually ensured that he was gone for at least four hours. Three hours dancing, an hour to drive back and forth. Occasionally he would go out with the guys and girls for a drink, if someone popped the idea. Sometimes, he wouldn’t. Today, he had just decided to go home. 

“Nothing much, walked these two, read your new chapter. Ate some leftovers, spoke to Sam on the phone for a bit. Now just playing with the girls.” 

“How’s Sam?” Bucky inquired, looking back to Steve. 

“He’s good, busy with Avenging and all that, but he sounds happy, says he’s now building up a solid group of vets in New York as well to help. Repeat folks, starting to build trust you know? He’s not doing any Avenging on Thursdays if he can help it, which is all good. Scott’s covering for him then.” 

“That’s good, happy to hear that he’s getting settled.” Bucky nodded a couple of times, genuinely happy with the news. “What did you think of the new chapter?” He asked, seeing the happy smile break over Steve’s face. 

“I loved it, I mean, the first part was a little bit worrying, yes. But then, I really liked it in the end. I didn’t know you were that intimidated by Peggy, though?” Steve leant forward again, accepted the ball from Winnie and tossed it in the pool. 

“Seriously Steve? Any man with half a brain would and should be intimidated by that woman.” Bucky laughed. Then he turned serious. “You know I didn’t  _ hate _ hate her, right?” He asked quietly, Steve nodded. 

“Of course, I know that.” Steve’s smile set him back at ease, the little bit of worry that was gnawing at his gut already eased. “Can I ask a question?” Bucky shrugged his shoulders to tell Steve to go for it, and waits. “Are you going to mention that the kiss you wrote about is the first kiss I’ve ever gotten?” 

“No.” Bucky shook his head and reached out for Steve’s beer again. Steve passed it over. “I want to keep that for ourselves. The world doesn’t need to know that much.” 

“Okay.” Steve looked relieved at that, and looked back to Winnie in the pool now just swimming laps rather than chasing her ball. 

“Might write that you were a virgin though,” Bucky teased, laughing when Steve gave him a push on his shoulder. 


	8. Fucking Captain America

“Steve!” Bucky called out through the house, having no idea where Steve was hiding. The art studio had been empty, which was where Bucky first looked. Winnie had nestled herself in the couch in the living room, so he couldn’t even use her paws against the floor to get a clue. “Steve, where the hell are you?! Come out, I need to ask you some stuff!” 

“What?!” Steve called out from the bathroom, muffled. With a whistle, Bucky turned and set direction for the source of Steve’s voice. He did find him in the bathroom, toothbrush in his mouth,  looking at Bucky with big eyes. Bucky snorted and leaned in the doorway, not entirely sure why he found the sight funny. Steve bent over the sink and spat out white and blue foam. “What?” Steve repeated, lips still white from it. 

“I wanted to ask you something,” Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest and watching Steve scoop some water in his mouth, rinse and spit it out again. 

“Alright, shoot.” Steve cleaned off the toothbrush under running water and reached for a small washcloth to wipe his mouth clean. 

“The next chapter, now don’t laugh because I know you will,” Bucky warned, even if he knew it was futile. “Will be called Fucking Captain America.” Sure enough, Steve’s snort of surprise interrupted Bucky. So Bucky waited for a moment to let Steve get his control back. “And I just wanted to know, seeing as that’ll be quite the intimate sort of chapter… I want to know what I can write and what I can’t write, you know. How detailed can I be, in your opinion? I’m obviously not going to tell them about our sex life in detail, they don’t need to know that much. But… are you alright with me mentioning it?” 

Steve shrugged and dropped his toothbrush in the glass that contained Bucky’s. “You can mention it, but like, in large strokes?” Steve gestured some with his hand. “But I don’t want you to write about it in detail, you know? I’d rather not have the world know exactly which tree you blew me against. But you can mention that we used to run off together to have fun. I just want the big details to just be ours.” 

“Alright.” Bucky stepped forward and pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek. “That’s what I was planning on writing, anyway. I just wanted to ask you first.” With his chin still resting on Steve’s shoulder he smirked. “Does this mean I  _ do _ get to write that you were a virgin?” 

“Get out of here, Hemingway,” Steve snorted and pushed Bucky away from him. Bucky just laughed and bounced out of the bathroom. 

“It’s Verne, bun, Verne!” He called out to him. Steve made a snorting sound, but didn’t take the bait that Bucky had laid out for him. 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 8 - Fucking Captain America.**

 

Twelve fucking years. That was how long I had loved Steve, by then. Ever since I saw him that day getting changed. I probably had loved him for longer than that, but that’s the very first day where I can remember wanting him and loving him. 

Twelve fucking years where I had held that love and that desire so close to heart, and not once uttered a word because of shame and in fear. And then to find out that Steve, wonderful Steve, had loved me too for all those years. Imagine how much time we could have saved if we had just been honest with one another, hadn’t been afraid of the consequences of our love?

We lived together for crying out loud, we shared a bedroom as friends. Steve in his bed and me in mine. Had we known we could, we would have spent so many of those years exploring and loving one another. Hidden away from the world in our own four walls where nobody could see us. Where we’d be able to love unconditionally. 

Steve’s apartment was at the end of the building’s side, so there was no risk of anyone walking past our windows and seeing even through the thin curtains. We could have pushed our beds together and we could have slept holding one another. I would have been able to brush my fingers over his hair when he slept, would have been able to listen to his breathing and press soft kisses to his shoulders. 

We never got that. 

But we did get one hell of a kiss amongst the rubble. And a second one, and a third, and for a moment that was all we did. We were both eager, we both wanted, too. Of course, it took us a while to regain our common sense. It was Steve eventually that suggested we’d better get out of there. He had a nice room. so I followed him, my hand barely an inch away from his so our fingers would brush together when they could. 

We didn’t sleep one bit that night, we had a lot to figure out with one another. So in between our nonstop kissing. Because while we were adults we still had the same amount of joy at finding out that our love for one another was mutual like fourteen year olds. In between all that we talked of so many unspoken things in between one another. So many praises that we had for the other, compliments and declarations of love one way or another. We told histories of how we had watched the other and just wanted to come in and kiss and touch. 

But there were other things to talk about as well, of course. Steve was to lead the Howling Commandos, and I was to go with him. We had started our romance in the middle of war. A war that seemingly had no end. If we’d both make it out alive. We’d be constantly surrounded by other people. We’d never be alone, the best we’d get would be stolen moments. Quiet nights in tents. 

We had to reach some agreement on what to do about that. How we would handle it, because there was no way that Steve was going to change his mind about fighting the war, no matter where my lips would be on his body. Because now not only had he set his mind to it, he had given his word, and Steve never broke his word. 

One way or another, we’d have to work with the cards that we were dealt. And you know what? I was okay with that, because I finally had Steve. I was willing to move mountains for him in order to stay with him. I honestly felt like I was in Seventh Heaven walking on clouds. 

Whatever my body was burning with, no matter how fucked up my stomach was at that time, no matter how the fever was affecting me, the nightmares, the itches and the pains. I would be alright, because I had Steve, he was mine, Peggy wasn’t a threat anymore because  _ he was mine _ . I had all the more reason to fight the war now, to make sure that both he and I made it through. Because it meant that we would be able to be together back home. That, was honestly all that I needed. 

I didn’t need more motivation than that. Steve was all that I needed. 

Because I did my waiting, twelve fucking years. 

Yes, I’ve seen Harry Potter. 

 

\--

 

Over the next few months, the Howling Commandos hit HYDRA’s bases one by one. Thanks to Steve, now blessed or cursed (you decide) with photographic memory, we travelled all over Europe to put a stop to HYDRA’S bases. We saw more of Europe then we ever had dreamt of, even more than our Europeans, Jacques, Pinky and Falsworth, had ever seen of the continent. 

We were behind enemy lines most of the time. Traveling on our own, moving about on our own in our little group. It wasn’t sunshine and daisies, not really. If you know basic history which I assume, most of you all do. 

If you don’t, well. What we did wasn’t that different from what I did before. We were still waging war, but on a much smaller, more controlled scale. There were no huge battlefields any longer, although we sure as hell wound up in them to help out every now and then. But for the most part it was us on sidelines, in woods, stopping convoys, liberating villages, finding forgotten shacks out in nowhere that weren’t really forgotten but were used as bases. 

Steve was good at what he did. He really was. He slipped so easily into the leader role that there never was any question of what to do and how to do it. His plans were thorough, well thought out with little to no margin for error. Every time we found a base, found a shack, found a village in need of help, Steve figured out exactly what to do and how to do it with minimum casualties, both for us and civilians. 

The Howling Commandos had never lost anyone before, we hardly ever even took injuries and maybe, just maybe that got to our heads a little. But we were a close team, we had each others backs. It was one of the reasons why we let Juniper come along in the first place. Steve had been adamant that Juniper couldn’t join us because of the risks and the kid’s age, but eventually Juniper convinced Steve that he was safer in a smaller group rather than in the thick of it. Steve relented, in the end. 

I don’t know if that’s actually true, if Juniper really was safer with us rather than out there fighting the war but, everybody looked after Juniper as if he was their little brother by blood. So, maybe it was true -- for a year and a half we didn’t lose any of our own. For a war, I think those odds are really freaking great. 

HYDRA, of course, was fucking pissed at what we were doing against them. Because out of their point of view, it seemed like no matter what they threw at our direction, we were able to dodge it, or destroy it. Often with the help of Jacques’s explosions and man, did he get pure glee on his face anytime something went up in the sky in fireworks. Repeatedly telling us that this was so much better than setting up explosives for mines. 

We worked our way through base after base, weapon arsenal after weapon arsenal, smashing and destroying their research and taking just enough for ourselves to bring back to our scientists for a boost. We liberated prison camps and sent people back to their families. We took back villagers and killed HYDRA men and we killed Nazis. 

I think this is important to remember -- we killed, we killed a lot of people. We were murderers, just like them. It’s easy to forget that we were murderers because we fought for the side that ended up winning. History chose to write us as heroes. 

In some cases, sure, we were heroes. We freed people from some pretty fucking awful men who were doing some god awful things to people. Rape, experiments, taking their homes, murdering their children and pets and the list goes on and on. Nobody ever really talks about the men we murdered just because they were there, whose fate had placed them in our path. Who were only following orders because their own family might have been at risk. Who would have been shot if they hadn’t taken that step forward and chose to fight. It’s easy to call them cowards, to say that you would never do that yourself. That you’d stand defiantly back in line and stare at them and say no, you weren’t going to fight. 

I’d like for you to stare down the barrel of a gun and see if you still say the same. It’s easy to say, but it’s not in everyone. Most people wind up fearing for their lives and turn against their country or turn with their country against the world if it meant that they got to live for another day. I don’t judge them for it. 

So let people remember this much, whenever you hail us Howling Commandos as heroes. We were murderers just as much. Sometimes we slept well on the choices we made, other times we didn’t sleep at all, and just sat around the fire quietly that evening without saying a word, replaying the scenario in our heads and just hoping, hoping that we hadn’t made a mistake, and that we had chosen the right thing. 

The lesser of two evils. 

 

\--

 

That doesn’t mean that everything that is mentioned in books, history, museums and documentaries is something we did. A documentary claimed that we turned the tide at Innsbruck, while in fact the battle was already won when we got there, we just helped with the clean up. 

We didn’t always start battles, which many believe that we did, most of the time we just found ourselves in the middle of it, and most of the time we just tried to make the best of it. 

 

\--

 

Through all of that, through the so-called mini-liberation of Europe that we were trying to pull off, Steve and I were constant and still very much in love. 

We never told the others on the team. We wanted to keep it to ourselves. We were all close friends, sure, but that didn’t mean that we had a clue how they’d react to such news. It was still in the freaking forties, people could be real nice and cool folks, be your best friend, but we still feared how they’d react when they’d find out. 

Steve as Captain America had to maintain respect still, so it wasn’t a good idea to go flaunting around that he also liked men, and even less that he was involved with me. It was our hushed secret, no matter how much we loved the other guys as friends. We never told them, and I think they never found out or figured it out themselves either. 

Considering most of the time if we were near a base, the men would tease Steve a bit about Peggy, if he’d seen her. They must have believed that there was something going on between those two, which fine, might have seemed that way to an outsider but it was just Steve being respectful towards her.  She was a dear friend to him, but that was all she was, just a friend. 

Alright, maybe I was still jealous of her, and still possessive when she came parading by and talk to Steve about the next move or debrief him or whatnot. I tried to be nice to her, I truly, truly did. I tried to be friendly to her, because Steve cared for her, and whoever is important to Steve was important to me. But that didn’t mean I searched her out. In private if it was just her, me and the other commandos I had little to nothing to say to her. I would respond if asked, but that was it. 

Childish maybe, I know, but I had little interest in befriending her. So all I did was to just, try and make my presence known to her whenever she was around Steve, interrupt if she acted in a way i didn’t like or said something. Now in hindsight, I also realise that I was looking into it a little bit too much. Because at the end of the day, Steve was always coming back to me, he was kissing me and putting his hands on me when we had a moment alone. I know for a fact that he never was alone with her save for once, and then they were waiting for the Colonel and Howard Stark to come and join them for the debriefing. No time to get close then. 

I do believe, however, that Morita knew. He wasn’t much of a talker, anyway, and kept his mouth shut on a lot of things. As long as it didn’t concern him, he said nothing. I think he knew because he just looked at us one evening when we came back. We did sneak off with one another, when we told the others we were patrolling. 

What we did really was race the patrol around. Steve was fast and could hear better than any of us. And so could I, but wasn’t quite as fast yet. So we’d meet in the middle somewhere, and then got a stolen moment with one another. For as much as we could before we had to get back. 

We got cockblocked a lot by HYDRA and Nazis, and sometimes by the commandos. So it was frustrating, but we got something at least, and it gave us some time to explore with one another. Neither of us had any previous experience with guys. So it was like being teenagers again, you know? Where you had your first romance and the first person you’d ever got intimate with and most of it was just awkward fumbling to figure out what worked and what didn’t. What felt nice and what didn’t. Because we didn’t have a clue, we knew what we liked on  _ ourselves _ , and it was just, a puzzle, really. The fun sort. 

This was enjoying anything sexual for the first time in my life. This was the first time I actually was with someone that I was physically and mentally attracted to. The little that we could do in those stolen moments while running patrols. In the middle of the night in tents with hushed voices, in Steve’s room if we stayed someplace fancier, was by far, far better than any sexual acts I had ever had with a woman. 

And you know what was even better? It felt right for the first time in my life. Sure, there was the stigma hanging around that you were mentally ill if you were attracted to men. That you were sick and disgusting and let’s not even talk about what the church was saying. There was still the risk of being murdered if anyone found out. I didn’t really care about it the same way that I once had. A whole fuckton of what in present day would be called internalized homophobia just lifted off my shoulders. 

I wasn’t going to be open about it, I wasn’t going to tell anyone. But with Steve, I just knew that it was the way it was supposed to be. For the first time since my early teens, I wasn’t ashamed of who I was and for who I wanted. I felt confident. That changed me for the better. That changed me up in my head, and who I was as a person. You can’t understand unless you’ve gone through that acceptance yourself. 

For the first time in my life, I let myself be loved and not turn the person away the moment that they showered me with attention. It was pretty fucking great. I could let myself fall in love. Well, more in love than I already was and it’s one of the best damn things I’ve done in my entire life. 

Do I wish that we had more quiet time, more time together in silence where we could just  _ be  _ together? Abso-fucking-lutely. I hated that we started our relationship in the middle of a war. But that was the hand that we had been dealt and I intended to play it the best we could. I dreamt of us just being back at home. Held on to a naive hope in a way that the government would just  _ let _ Steve go home when all of this was over. 

I dreamt of us just living our life alone and in peace. Whenever I woke up, I would always feel disappointed, because I was fully aware that wasn’t our future. We didn’t even know when there would be an end to the war,  _ if _ there would be an end to the war.  _ If _ we lived to see it. 

When you’re in war, it feels like it’ll never end. It’s such a strong reality, one where you live moment by moment, day by day. Thinking week by week isn’t something that you do. You only think of the small moments -- you’re aware that everything could be over in seconds. We were lucky, us Commandos, but whenever we were walking through a woodland area, or driving on a small forgotten dirt road the thought played in the back of your mind. 

What if this is the time when there was an ambush that managed to sneak up on us and opened fire before we could react, like we had done before? What if this time we drove over a landmine and we went up in flames, like we had planted ourselves for others. We had done so many things, we knew just what people were capable of doing to others. 

Moment by moment. The terror was real, even in the midst of a romance. 

 

\--

 

Over the next few months, while we worked our way through those HYDRA bases, prison camps, shacks, battle fields and so on and so on, my body seemed to settle. 

The fever that Zola had induced me with eased. It took about three months, but it disappeared, and once the fever broke, all the other symptoms I was having started to slowly drift away as well. My stomach finally settled, and I went from being nauseous about most foods, to starving over the span of an hour. I didn’t give a fuck that all we had that evening was some makeshift stew made of squirrels and a couple of rats. 

The other guys hadn’t eaten that much, because of the knowledge that there was rat meat in it. I was too hungry to give a flying fuck, and ate all that remained without even asking if they wanted anything. They would have stopped me, anyway. When I had finished three plates on my own, I actually kept the food down. All of it, which was the most wonderful feeling, because I could sleep with a heavy stomach. I slept like a rock. Best sleep I had since coming to Europe. 

The itch that was burning under my skin, crackling around like electricity in itches and restlessness that was unbearable, eased up. It disappeared, and with that the twitch of my fingers, involuntary contractions of my muscles in my thighs, in my arms and in my sleep went away. All of a sudden I could relax, and I could let the stiffness finally work out of my system, and I could sit and lay down comfortably without anything stretching somewhere or pulling and causing pain. 

The headaches that were like migraines, blinding like thunder over my left eye eased, lessened, and eventually disappeared fully. With that, my eyes settled, and I felt like I could see better than before, that I saw everything more sharp, more clear, that I saw further and better. I had always been a good sniper, but now I was more comfortable with it on a different level, and I started sniping again for the Commandos, trusting myself to be able to do it. 

It wasn’t just my sight that had changed, I could hear better. Steve heard them first, then I did, and then the rest of the crew. I could hear muffled voices at longer distances, and I could tell if it was one of our guys or strangers. I healed better, faster. Not like Steve, who healed at the pace a racehorse ran at times. We took bets to see how long certain cuts and wounds would take on him. 

For me, it wasn’t quite that fast. Not noticeable to the others. But noticeable enough to me. I kept it to myself. I didn’t want to share it with the others, I didn’t want to tell Steve and explain to him what they had done to me. He didn’t need to know that, even if I’m sure that he had been smart enough and figured it out. 

But while my body was settling, I wasn’t even ready to talk about it yet. It was still a trauma, a very painful thing that I still had nightmares of, narrated by Zola’s honeyed voice, waking me in the dead of night when I saw images of that chair. 

Often waking up with a headache, because of what happened when they put me in that chair, when they tried to fry my brain. For what, I didn’t know then. I just thought it was a way for them to keep me under control. I was wrong, but that didn’t matter. That didn’t matter at all. 

So I was different, I kept it to myself, and I used it to my advantage to stay alive. To keep the others safe, to help Steve in his mission of bringing HYDRA down and annoying the Red Skull, which I still believed was some figment of my imagination, until Steve told that tale around a campfire one evening. Of how Schmidt had just taken off his face. 

I didn’t want to believe him, but what choice did I have but accept the truth?

 

\--

 

Not all of our moments of romance were quick and hurried. Sometimes we had the luck of having an entire evening, sometimes even days depending on what we had managed to pull off. We had a couple of moments where we could allow ourselves to disappear from the world a little bit. 

Because sure, most of it was pretty fucking terrible. But there were a handful of calm moments where we just had a chance to be. There was a time when we were stranded on the French countryside for a couple of days. I don’t remember for sure what we had been doing, but on our way back to camp the truck we had stolen broke down, so we wound up walking for a little bit while trying to figure out how to contact base and ask for a ride. 

During our walk, we stumbled upon a farm. By then, Steve was already a well known figure, his face was recognizable and those who recognize him by sight knew who he was by the shield. So they offered us to stay there while the Colonel, Peggy or Howard figured out how to get us back and where exactly we were. We were told to stay put, and the family all but happily let us stay in the barn and fed us. 

For a couple of days, it was almost like a normal life. We helped them around. Dugan, Morita and Falsworth helped the man plow his field. Dernier tried his best to charm the man’s daughter and only got a bucket of milk dunked over his head for his effort. Gabe built a treehouse for the kids that were running around with Juniper’s help. 

It was as close as we could get to a normal life for a little while. We could just leave our guns behind and forget about them. We could all sit around a table with one another and laugh and play games. Steve and I had a little roll in the hay in another stolen moment, we had another one out in the tall grass. 

The summer was warm that year, you see, and the sun was shining bright as if it was reflecting everybody’s moods. Bright, excited, and happy. Swimming by the river, which essentially meant we were trying to drown one another. Tanning, napping, getting freaked out by cows. Yes, Steve and I got freaked out by cows -- we were city boys after all, don’t forget. 

If there is a time that I’d have to chose to go back to, it would be one of those four days. It’d be to the moment where Steve and I were sitting under that oak tree, just sitting, listening to the singing birds. Kissing him when I had the chance. It’d be to those poker games we played with the farmer, Antoine. To the moment when Jacques was reading to us from the only book that the family had, even if only he and Gabe understood it. To trying to salvage our truck with Dugan, but to decide to strip it for the best parts in the end. 

Not all war has to be hell, there were good moments, even if occasionally there would be military planes flying over our heads. In the end, Howard Stark did pick us up which meant we had to get back to work. But there are moments where hell isn’t always that bad. Where you make the best of what you got. Kind of like that saying, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. 

It’s not just away from war that we had these moments, we had plenty of them in the midst. When we were at camp and someone got a letter from a girlfriend or a parent, and the sheer joy that came over them. Like the time someone in another division got a picture sent by his wife, a picture of his first born kid. A little girl who had been named after his mother, and he was so proud and so happy. Jacques singing a song that his mother used to sing one late evening after a particularly rough evening, set everyone right at ease again. It was a beautiful, wonderful song, tragic in its own way but perfect for the evening. 

When Juniper turned seventeen and Gabe, Falsworth and I scoured a good chunk of Belgium to find a bakery that was still somewhat operational and get him a cake. Do you know how hard it was to find a bakery that was still up and running, doesn’t use sawdust, in a country that has been bombed by the Germans  _ and _ the English because it was in a middle ground? We stopped by every village from in between Kortrijk to a place called Oudenaarde, do you know how many fucking villages Belgium has? 

In the end, we found a cake for him and set back, made it just in time. Steve and Dugan had been out to try and find him a gift of some sort. While Jacques had been doing his best to keep Juniper distracted and Pinky and Morita had set up a little surprise party in a bar for him. Belgium might not have had many functioning bakeries left, but it sure as hell still had bars. They had their priorities straight. 

It was a wonderful party, and while Juniper denied it, he cried a little bit. We had fun. Most of us got blazing drunk. But it was a wonderful evening and exactly what we had needed for a good long while. Juniper’s was the only birthday we actually celebrated, mostly because he was a kid and he still needed that, but the rest of us? We didn’t really care about it in the same way. 

Every moment I had with Steve, every moment was so fucking wonderful that I never wanted to give up. Every night, we were able to share a bed and I could feel his arm around me, feel his breathing against my neck, or press soft kisses against his while we drifted off. Experimenting with one another. 

The moments in the middle of the night when I could whisper to him that I loved him, kiss his knuckles and hold him close to me. Those were the moments that really mattered to me. Those were the moments that helped me keep it all together for just over a year. Steve, and the bright little happy moments in between when war didn’t matter. 

 

\--

 

It was Winter when we got intelligence on Zola, and got approved for a mission to apprehend him. 

I didn’t want to go for multiple reasons. I wanted to put as much distance between me and Zola as I physically could. I was still terrified of him. If that meant that he was going East, then I was going West. I couldn’t say no to Steve, though, and he must have known that because he took me aside when he told me about it. 

I remember while I wanted to be as far away from him as possible, as soon as Steve told me about the mission and told me that I didn’t have to come if I didn’t want to, that I was furious with him. Furious for assuming that I’d let Steve go after Zola all on his own. He’d have the others, but Steve would be alone if I wasn’t there. 

Zola was a larger threat than the Red Skull for as far as I was concerned, so I was going to come with Steve to ensure that he would be safe. That he wouldn’t end up trapped and experimented on, like I was. I was angry with Steve for suggesting that I’d stay behind, and I was angry with him for wanting to catch Zola in the first place. But I kept my mouth shut. In hindsight, maybe I should have said something, done something, then maybe everything would have played out differently. 

We spent the next two weeks planning and rehearsing. Going over every little bit of information that we had on this train, what would be on it, who would be on it. How we’d get on it, how we’d knock out the guards. How we’d get to Zola, what we would take and what we would destroy. 

I gave up what little information I had kept to myself, which didn’t help much at all. In my captivity I had never learned much, and what little I had learned they had very carefully grafted out of me or made me doubt it. So I kept by their side and I practiced, I prepared, and couldn’t sleep. The worry and the fear was keeping me up. I would take the first shift of night watch, and the second, let the others sleep, and maybe just get three hours at the most near the early morning. I cleaned my weapons over and over, and the closer we got to the day, the harder my heart beat in my chest. 

To make matters worse, when we finally found ourselves up on that cliff looking down on the tracks on the other end of the ravine, I was scared shitless not only with the prospect of facing Zola, but I was also scared shitless about being so fucking high up, and having to cross said ravine on a zipline. 

All those years later, all the stupid and bravado things that we had done and I was still terrified of fucking heights. I had to walk away for a moment and throw up for the first time in months until there was nothing left in my stomach. With shaking hands, I accepted a bit of drink that Gabe offered me to steady my nerves. He saw and realised that I didn’t like heights. 

It calmed me, somewhat. Enough to chase the tremble out of my knees and the shaking out of my hands. I looked collected again, which I had to do as the second-in-command. Maybe that was what made me ask Steve if this was some trick of his. Some evil revenge about the Cyclone I had made Steve throw up on. At that instant, I was convinced that he knew I was terrified of heights, even if he didn’t seem to be showing it. 

We rode the zip lines over the ravine when the train came, wound up on top of it at full speed, one by one. Steve first, me after him, the others following after us. We had split up the carriages amongst one another. Steve and I were up front, and worked our way into the train. The bit of bourbon that Gabe had given me to calm me down for the heights had worn off, and I didn’t feel like I was standing securely on my own two feet as we worked through the carriage. 

HYDRA must have known we were coming, because the doors slid shut and separated us. Agents on both sides, Steve with some guys to deal with and me too. Now, this was a small space, and I had limited options to move to when there were two or three guys shooting at me, I’m not sure anymore how many there were. I remember I took out one of them at least, but I was out of bullets and still being shot at.

Steve, glorious Steve, came to the rescue and tossed me a gun. Together we took out the last guy, or guys, not sure. The point is, he saved me. For about three seconds there was peace, until another man showed up, because nothing is ever easy. 

If you’ve ever been in a fight you know that shit goes fast, without much thinking, just instinct. It was like that. I couldn’t tell you what we did, but I know that at one point there was a hole blown into the side of the train and I picked up Steve’s shield. This dude was shooting at us with some form of force-field blaster. So with Steve down behind me, I figured, the shield is absorbent right? That’s all I had ever heard. 

He fired at me. What I didn’t take into account was that sure, the shield was absorbent, and it did lessen some of the blast. But not all of it, and while I was stronger, better than the average human I wasn’t Steve just yet. So, it didn’t take that much to knock me out of the train. 

There I was, clinging to the side with everything that I had. Hoping and praying that Steve would be okay. That he’d get up, figure out a way to deal with the bastard. That he’d come and get me. I was holding onto a railing, freezing to death in the cold wind. My face was burning, my ears were burning, and yet at the same time I was so fucking cold. I couldn’t move, every little inch that I shifted I felt the bar creak.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t even aware of the height of the ravine at that, I was only focused on holding on, my heartbeat, and my breathing. Fast and ragged. I heard Steve -- in some miraculous way he had taken down the guy, and now he was coming for me. 

The problem was, Steve wasn’t the skinny less than a 100 lbs kid anymore. Every inch that he came closer, I felt the metal shift underneath me with the extra weight. But I held on to hope, Steve still had his hand on the inside of the train, or so it looked, so I hoped he would be able to grab my hand, and with that, pull the both of us back in. 

But as he reached and I reached, I pushed down on the railing. The railing snapped. 

I fell. 

 

~~*~~

 

Steve was obviously uncomfortable by the end of the chapter. Bucky could tell just by the way that he was scrunching up his nose. Bucky had been too, when he had been writing it, but he suspected that their discomfort was based on two entirely different things. Bucky could feel the weight in his stomach, the dread at what he had to write about next. Whereas Steve… Bucky suspected that Steve was just replaying that moment over and over in his head. 

“I almost want to say that you shouldn't have ended the chapter that way,” Steve began, reached for his glass of water and sipped it, then he let out a deep sigh. “But you probably should. It is what happened, it’s the right order. And… it happened.” 

Bucky hummed in response. Still watching Steve with attentive eyes in the hope that he could see in time if he was getting upset. That he then just had to scoot over to the other end of the couch and make Steve put the papers down, and hug him. “It wasn’t your fault,” Bucky said, hoping that it would placate Steve. Calm him down and make him stop blaming himself, because he already was. Bucky could tell. Steve shook his head. 

“You wrote it, I tried to climb out, I was too heavy. You fell,” Steve sounded… Bucky wasn’t quite sure how Steve sounded. His voice was neutral, almost as if he was distancing himself. This was Steve when he was blaming himself. Bucky scooted over in the couch to sit beside Steve, put an arm around his shoulders and looked at the page. Then tapped a line. 

“I also wrote that every inch I moved, I felt the bar creak, didn’t I? It’s not your fault, Steve. It would have given way, anyway. And it did, when I tried to reach, because I didn’t think. So I pushed down, and I made it snap. It’s not your fault,” Bucky said softly, squeezing Steve on his shoulder. He watched Steve take a deep breath through his nose, his eyes not tearing off the pages and the words that Bucky had pointed out for him. His jaw was set, but eventually Steve relented and nodded. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bucky repeated, putting the other pages back on top. He took the chapter out of Steve’s hands and set it down beside him. Bucky kissed Steve on his cheek. “So don’t blame yourself, because it wasn’t you. The bar would have given way anyhow.” 

“Okay.” Steve nodded again, Bucky saw how his jaw relaxed a little, but still felt concerned when he saw how Steve was just looking down to his lap where the pages had been. 

“Hey, Stevie? Look at me,” he tried. Steve glanced up. The distance was still in his eyes. “Repeat after me, it wasn't your fault.” 

“It wasn’t…” Steve hesitated, his gaze flickered down and he took Bucky’s hand. “It wasn’t my fault,” Steve eventually managed to say. Bucky smiled and kissed him on the top of his head. 

“Good,” he whispered. “Did you like the rest of the chapter? The happy parts?” Bucky tried, eager to get Steve’s train of thought onto something else. Something brighter so he wouldn’t toss and turn half of the night in bed or dream about it. He was positive that Steve already would, but anything he could do to lessen the blow, the better. 

“I did,” Steve nodded a couple of times and relaxed against the back of the couch. “I had forgotten about the farmers. Those were some nice days. And Juniper’s birthday party. He was really happy with that party.” 

“He was,” Bucky agreed. “I’m happy I remembered us under that oak tree. That was nice. Just us and birds.” Bucky smiled to Steve, and saw how the corners of the others mouth twitched up a little. Good. 

“Are you…” Steve took a breath, then bit on his lip before he took Bucky’s hand. “Are you going to write about  _ them  _ next?” Steve inquired gently. Bucky took a deep sigh and looked back to the bundle of pages beside him. The bolded text that said  **Fucking Captain America** stood out and was the only legible thing on the front page. 

Bucky didn’t answer at first. He didn’t want to think of HYDRA. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to write it, let alone that he  _ could  _ write it. He had barely talked about the topic with Namazzi, and Steve was still left in the blind. Both to protect him from the horrors that they had put Bucky through, and because he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, with anyone. The idea of writing about it for the world to see before he had even told his story verbally to anyone was somewhat odd. Somewhat bizarre. 

“Yeah. I guess I should, shouldn’t I? It’d be weird to just, not write a damn thing about it and just pick things up again in D.C before everything went to shit,” He chuckled, not really knowing why. It wasn’t a topic he wanted to make light of. “Something should be written. And I think… I think it might be good to write about it. Get it out in the open you know? That’s what everyone else always says, that’s what brought me this far. And I did say that I was going to tell the true story. Only I know what they did. So maybe it’s the right thing to do, both for me and for the world, you know?” 

Steve didn’t respond at first. He just watched Bucky, then nodded a little bit. “Okay,” he said eventually, and squeezed Bucky’s hand. 


	9. HYDRA

The computer had been open and staring at him with a blank screen for the better part of two hours now. Everytime that Bucky sat down and looked at it, he felt terror, and instantly went off to do something else. This dance had gone on and on and on. Bucky would sit down, look at the screen and suddenly decide that he needed to wash the windows in the living room, which really didn’t need cleaning. 

He did the laundry, he took meat out from the freezer. He went out to check up on the goats. He watered his plants and checked his tomatoes for the second time that day, as if they’d be magically ripened. He went back to the laundry and took it out to hang up on the clothesline. And he didn’t write a single damn word. 

Instead, Bucky had focused himself on a behavior that he usually didn't endorse, that he usually hated. And he fled. He was procrastinating. 

After filling up his drink for the second time, he sat down again in front of the computer. And typed one word, and one number. 

Chapter 9. 

He almost deleted that and closed down his computer. When he caught his hand hovering over the backspace button, he also caught himself chewing on the thumbnail belonging to his right hand. When had he last chewed on his fingernails? Never, that was when. He could feel the way his stomach was turning, making him feel nauseous even if he fully well knew that he hadn’t eaten anything off. And he knew fully well that the tightness around his chest was worry. Not anxiety, but  _ worry _ . 

Namazzi had taught him the difference when he used anxiety to explain every single thing that he felt in his chest that gave him discomfort. No, he wasn’t anxious now. He was worried, because he knew what was making him so wound up. 

He was worried about writing the HYDRA years. 

He took a breath, put his hands on the keyboard of his laptop and was grateful that he was home alone. It was just him and the dogs. Steve had gone out to meet T’Challa or something. Bucky had only listened with half an ear. He hadn’t wanted Steve around when he started writing this chapter. He didn’t want Steve to see any of it until he had finished it. If he ever had that much luck. 

With a whine, he pulled his hands back and took a drink. The coldness of it was refreshing, but did absolutely nothing to ease any of the tension in his back and shoulders. He tugged at his hair, hard, before catching himself and let go. 

“I got this…” He muttered to himself and pulled his chair closer, placed his hands back on the keyboard. He hit caps lock. “I got this,” He repeated to himself, and pressed down five keys on the laptop. He looked back up. The grand total was now two words, and one number. 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 9 - HYDRA**

 

This part in the book will be the most jumpy. You see, I only have myself to rely on when it comes to facts about HYDRA. Nobody knows what happened to me during my time there but me and the HYDRA officials involved. I’m not going to go and knock on their doors to ask them for dates in particular, or the order of things. 

So you’ll just have to live with inconsistencies if you find them. I’ve done my best to lay everything out the way that I believe it happened. Chronological. Does it really matter? It’s the best that you’re going to get. HYDRA fucked up my head, badly so. They fucked up my memory, and wiped me clean. Many,  _ many  _ times. To the point that now, even with the serum that they eventually perfected on me, I’m still having issues with it. 

I mentioned this at the start of the book -- my memory is still glitchy, and while I’ve got most of my memory back on track, remembered most of my life, there are still many things that I don’t remember. Things that I never will remember. I’m at peace with that now, I’ve accepted that. I’ve accepted that I will forever forget how my mother looked. That I can look at a picture of her and know that woman is my mother, but if i turn away and you ask me five minutes later? I wouldn’t know how to describe her. These are the things that I’ve come to live with. Some of the moments in this chapter are like that. I remember certain situations and certain things they did to me, but I can’t remember for the life of me why they did that. I can remember why they did things to me, but I can’t remember  _ what  _ they did. You’ll see all of that soon enough. I just felt the need to give you all some form of disclaimer for all of this.

I apologize a lot for things that are and were beyond my control. This is one of them. 

 

\--

 

I remember looking up, and seeing the most beautiful trees covered in snow. From where I was laying the bark seemed black underneath all that white. I remember a squirrel, looking down at me curiously. I remember hurting all over, and wondering if I was dead. I had to be, right? I remember blinking, and there were stars in the sky. 

I had fallen from Lord only knew how high, and it wasn’t just a soft little thump in the snow. Sure, the foot, foot and a half of snow that there was on the bottom of the ravine had cushioned my fall a bit, but it wasn’t the first thing to do so. 

I had hit the mountside itself on the way down, smashed against rock and kept tumbling down further, breaking bones. I had hit the trees, and felt like I hit every damn branch on the way down before finally winding up in the soft, cold snow. Fuck knows how I survived that,  _ nobody  _ could have survived that. And even if I repeated that drop today, I wouldn’t survive that, even with a better serum running through me. I do deeply and firmly believe that I was lucky. That it was the last twist that cruel irony could give me. 

My ribs were broken. That was for sure, three or four at least. Every shallow little breath that I took hurt like someone set my sides on fire. My left arm was numb from the shoulder down -- I couldn’t feel it. My head was pounding like someone had shoved sharp rocks up there and shook them around.I’m pretty sure I fractured my skull on the way down. My ankle felt shattered, pressing against my boots as it swelled. Every single muscle in my body hurt, as if I was one gigantic bruise.I probably was. 

I remember looking up at that starry sky through those beautiful snow topped trees thinking,  _ this isn’t such a bad place to die.  _

 

\--

 

It was the Russians who found me. I woke up when they were dragging me through the snow, two of them with guns on their backs,  gripping my jacket while talking to one another, with little care of the world or me. A third was walking after me, his eyes on me without really seeing me.

Then I saw the trail through the snow that they walked, and the red trail that we left behind and I wondered,  _ what the fuck is that. _ The trail lead to my left arm which I still couldn’t feel, and whose shoulder was still pumping, throbbing. I didn’t have my hand anymore. I didn’t have my arm. It was just gone. I passed out at the sight, or fell asleep again. I’m not entirely sure what I did. 

I wasn’t phased much by the loss of a limb, it didn’t matter much, did it? I was still alive, still breathing and I would be okay. I felt like hell on earth, sore and cut up, broken to a million little pieces, but I was still alive. I had made it this far without dying.I would be fine. They could take me to their base and I could be a prisoner a little while. It would be better than laying out in the freezing snow waiting for death. 

I knew Steve would figure it out, that he would come for me and rescue me. He knew where I had fallen, and in my mind it made perfect sense. Almost comically so. Steve and the other Commandos would find the trail of blood that I was leaving for them, and they’d find the Soviet base and they would come and rescue me. It was just a matter of time. I had time enough, the way I was dozing in and out of consciousness. Five minutes felt like five hours, and five hours could feel like five minutes. They would be there before I knew it. 

I was wrong, of course. This was only the beginning of the millions of ways where life would decide to fuck me over completely. Fuck me completely and utterly raw. 

When I woke up again, I wasn’t in the hands of the Soviets anymore. I didn’t realise that, of course. They had thrown me in a cell and left me there. Given me some quick first aid, and when I woke up my left arm was sloppily bandaged. They had taken off my boots and the ankle was  shattered was bandaged as well. My sides still hurt, and were a deep purple color. Every breath still hurt, and my eyesight swam all the time. I couldn’t focus on anything. I didn’t bother to make any noise. I wouldn’t be able to stand up. 

I took the blanket which was slightly damp and smelled of mold, and covered myself with it. And slept, for I don’t know how long. Time was already difficult to keep, but it’s even harder when you’re in a cell with no window. Five minutes could very much feel like five hours. I wasn’t certain on how much sleep I got. 

But every time I woke up, I felt a little bit more clear. A little bit more awake, and a little bit more aware. I started actually paying attention to the voices around me, of the guards walking past and I understood that they weren’t speaking in Russian to one another. They were speaking German. After that, when my eyesight became clear enough, I realised that I was back in the hands of HYDRA. 

That’s when I grew scared. I thought of Zola, and grew scared. What if Steve and the others hadn’t managed to apprehend him? What if I was back in Zola’s hands? No doubt, he’d take great interest in continuing whatever experiments he had on me now that I was near him. 

I know I shouldn’t doubt them. I couldn’t doubt them. Zola would be in the hands of Steve, Stark, Carter and the Colonel. Zola was far, far away from me and any second, any second a wall would blow up and they would make their appearance and they’d drag my ass out of here. Any second. Any second. 

Any second changed into any minute. Any minute changed into any moment.

My arm started to rot. I was recovering, slowly and bit by bit. My ribs no longer hurt, my head didn’t hurt and most of the bruising had settled. I still couldn’t stand on my ankle. But none of that worried me. What worried me was the rot coming from my arm, the stench, how the flesh that I thought was healing swelled and turned pink and maroon. How every little light touch on it felt like it seared through everything. And how I started to get feverish again, and sick, throwing up what little they fed me. Feeling cold and warm and confused. I couldn’t breathe. 

Luckily for me, depending on how you look at it, they must have decided that I was worth  _ something _ at least. Because they took me to a doctor for the arm. At this point I was delirious again, I had no clue what they were talking about. No idea what they were doing until they shoved pills down my throat, needles in my other good arm, and started cutting away at what remained of my left arm, all while still fully conscious. 

I screamed. 

I screamed, and I begged, and I struggled. They needed four men just to keep me down so the doctor could work his magic on me. It was one of the most intense pains I’ve ever felt in my entire fucking life. I screamed myself hoarse and until I was sobbing, begging for them to stop. 

They did, but not until they were finished. I probably got better care for the arm than I had before. The doctor had just poured alcohol over the stub which honestly felt like they had set it on fire. Then they bandaged me up, properly this time around despite my protests. I know I should have just let them. I know I shouldn’t have struggled, but I was half mad with pain and just wanted it to stop. I couldn’t decide which was worse, the rot or them cutting away at me. 

 

\--

 

A moment became days. Days became weeks. Weeks turned into months. 

Steve hadn’t come for me yet. But that was okay, because he would. I figured they must have taken me to a secret base that the Commandos had no knowledge of. They would come for me, they were looking.  

I don’t know how long I was their prisoner for, but I remember at one point they were just laughing.  That was the first time they spoke English to me. Broken but good enough for me to understand. They told me that my country had lost the war. That HYDRA had won. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. But what the fuck could I say or do about that? Steve hadn’t come for me, maybe he was dead. Maybe they were all dead and maybe, just maybe  the Germans were telling the truth.

Maybe the United States had lost the war, and maybe Steve was dead. 

I didn’t know that we had won. I didn’t know much of anything. 

 

\--

 

As far as being a prisoner goes, it wasn’t all that bad. It could have been way, way worse. I knew that in an odd, almost hysterical way, I was lucky. I could have wound up in another work camp where they could have made me work until I dropped again and shot me in the head. They could have decided that I wasn’t worth saving after falling from that ravine, and shot me in the head. 

After everything, I still didn't want to die. 

So as far as being a prisoner at that base, it wasn’t all that bad. Sure, I wasn’t allowed to leave my cell, and I had no sense of time. But they fed me. My arm healed well, and this time I didn’t get rot in it. They didn’t beat me up, but they very much had the chance to do so. It was long and lonely yes, but I was alive, alive and just spending all my time waiting. I spent all my time in the corner of my cell with my eyes shut dreaming of when I’d get out of there. I imagined that I had been given a bath or a shower, imagined that they had let me shave and that they cut my hair. 

That pulled me through it, imagining my other life where I would and could have lived better. 

Given enough time I learned German from the guards, enough to communicate with them. From then on, I eavesdropped on their stories, got myself involved in their lives despite that they were my captors. Learned about the petty fights they had with their wives and learned about their children, their parents. 

It was my only window to the outside. I had to focus on something in order to keep myself from going insane. I was grateful for it.  

 

\--

 

Sometime during my captivity, Zola was recruited for Operation Paperclip. This was the operation where the United States recruited German scientists to give them a leg up after the war. Share German discoveries and sciences.  

At first, Zola helped from prison; he did have a sentence to serve. But eventually, given enough time Zola can do anything. He twisted his way out of their grip, and managed to be excused from actual prison to help SHIELD. Help, I say with a bit of sarcasm. 

Because all that he did was try and worm it into his control. Zola was the very first parasite that joined SHIELD, the very first that set it’s claws and teeth into something that was meant to be good. SHIELD had barely existed for a few months, and they thought  that they knew what they were dealing with. They knew that Zola was one of their most prominent figures for the Operation, so they kept close watch on him. But Zola was smart, so he did what he was asked, and only opened his mouth when it mattered. 

This way, he managed to ensure that SHIELD and HYDRA merged with one another. SHIELD didn’t have a clue. With this, he got more freedom. So, he came for a visit. 

I was playing cards with two of the guards. Every now and then, if they were in a good mood and it was the right guards, they’d let me play. Mostly because I was a polite prisoner, asking how their wives and kids were doing. Giving suggestions as to what to do when they had arguments and which flowers to buy. I wouldn’t consider it helping the enemy, and before you go calling me a traitor, remember, this was my only window to the outside. Most of these guys were good men, following orders only to make ends meet. There were only a selected handful that actually believed in HYDRA’s perfect vision. 

Then in he walked, like a man who owned the fucking place. Which in hindsight of course, he did. I wish I had just dropped my cards and scrambled into the corner of my cell, that I backed away from him as far as I could.I wouldn’t have been ashamed of it. Not in the least. 

But I didn’t. I just clutched my cards tighter and just stared at him. All of the muscles in my body tensing up in a fight or flight panic, but neither of those happened. Nobody ever really talks about paralyzing fear. That is what happened to me when he walked in like that, smiling poison. I didn’t even hear whatever he was saying. And maybe that was for the best. 

 

\--

 

Zola’s return was hell for me. I knew very well what he managed to do to me on a short time span. Now I was facing that very same fate for months on end. I had already been there for months, and Steve hadn’t come for me. Now I was beginning to change from someone who hoped, to a realist. 

I believed Zola when he told me that the war had ended, that the war had ended years ago. I believed Zola when he told me that Steve was missing, that nobody really knew where he was. That he had gone missing somewhere across the ocean on a plane to the States in one last heroic act of sacrificing himself for the good of mankind. That, I could believe, because that was exactly the sort of shit that Steve did if I wasn’t around to keep an eye on him. 

That’s what he did when I got shipped off to war, letting himself be a guinea pig and all. Only now he had done the one thing that couldn’t bring him back. The knowledge of Steve being dead was all it took to break me to pieces before they had even truly started. I hadn’t cried much during my captivity, no matter how tired or hungry or distraught that I was. But after hearing that, I sobbed . That was all they ever really wanted, of course. 

Zola was happy, because it brought my mental state down to a point where I’d be easier to handle. He was happy. He had an experiment still alive, and was even more intrigued when he learned what sort of fall that I had survived. He wanted to know how I was still living and breathing, and to top it all of, I had been treated with luxury for as far as being a captive goes. I was was well-fed and warm, with a bed and blankets of my own. I wasn’t sick. I was nursed to perfect health and kept healthy for his inevitable return. He was intrigued, because in me he saw all the research he had lost in the shape of a prime subject, at better health than I ever had been in his previous care. Now it was all there for him, and he could use me for HYDRA. 

Of course, he really only had an interest in my body. Bucky Barnes didn’t matter to him. Bucky Barnes had a history, and that wouldn’t do them any good, that wouldn’t help them no matter how he twisted and turned it, it was only an obstacle for him. A hurdle he had to cross in order to get to what mattered the most. So what they needed was my body, my shell. The rest? That was only good to throw in the trash. But my body, my body would remain an asset to HYDRA, and that wasn’t something they’d let go so easily. 

Not when they were down on their knees scraping to survive. I would be an asset for them.

 

\--

 

First, they took blood samples. 

Zola wanted to know what he was working with, of course. Wanted to know what had changed in me, wanted to know what made me survive through horrendous situations and he wanted to know what he was going to deal with. With me, he saw a chance to salvage the serum that they thought HYDRA had previously lost. Recreate it and use it in the future on other candidates that came his way. 

It would be a long puzzle, but he knew what he was looking for so that made it a little bit easier.e He had to rely solely on memory. Geniuses don’t have a fail-safe memory like the movies make you think, and comically most of what they wind up discovering or making progress on are incidents and accidents when they’re trying to make progress on something else. 

After the blood tests came back and they realised that there was some form of serum in my blood, they took as much of it as they could. Hooking me up and draining me of my own blood until my body started to go into shock from it. It annoyed them a couple of times, because they had to give me my blood back on an incident or four, before they learned just how much they could tap out of me without having me faint on them, or slowly die in the process. 

For weeks I was tired from lack of blood. A weakness and an exhaustion that had seeped through to my bones and made everything feel heavy. Being tired, however, was the easy part of it all. The harder part was accepting that Steve was gone, crashed in a plane. Most of my energy went to that, honestly, mourning. Laying curled up on my bed that they had so generously let me keep and sleep, or cry. Steve was dead, and there had been nothing that I had been able to do to stop it. 

Because of that, in an odd way, I didn’t really care what HYDRA wanted to do with me. As long as it just put an end to me. Steve and I had made one another a promise back when we were kids, and I kept thinking over and over how I had no way to go through with that on my own. I was under constant supervision, because I was a prized guinea pig. So while all I wanted was to tear my bedsheets into pieces and hang myself with them, I wouldn’t even make it to the noose before they’d tear it out of my hands. My only hope was that they would just kill me, by accident, or on purpose, and just discard me.

Next, the injections started again. Thick syringes that bruised my arms and my legs, filled with a thick liquid that burned and set cramps into the muscles  that they injected. Cramps so hard that it made my limbs feel like rocks, a pain that just wouldn’t go away, an itch that never stopped. Maddening enough for me to claw at my own skin. 

The fever was brought back, leaving me clammy and shivering, dreaming nightmares of Zola and blood dripping from his mouth, of Steve, underwater and slamming his fist at something in attempt to get out, drowning. Of my mother, kind and sweet before turning into a monster and ripping me to pieces. I would wake up, and I wouldn’t be able to move, paralyzed with fear or from whatever they had given me, I’m not entirely sure. 

There were more spinal taps that made all of my spine ache, that gave me blinding migraines when they botched it. They made my vision all fucked up and knocked my sense of balance crooked to the point where I constantly felt like I was falling, even if I was laying on the floor. It still felt like I was sinking through it. Like the worst sort of drunken episode you can imagine. 

They made me delirious again, and I was convinced once more that I was seeing my mother and my sisters. I was convinced that there was a child crying further down the hall and that it was my niece. I was convinced that the hands on my neck, on my shoulders, guiding me to Zola were the hands of my father and that he was there for me. I was convinced that Steve was gently brushing his fingers through my hair when I curled up, whispering to me that everything was okay. The latter brought out a fear in me though, because it was so real, and I knew that Steve was missing, gone, dead. 

I started to get sick again, unable to keep food down, which they still gave me, thank god for a little mercy at least. I would eat, and less than five minutes later it would be come back up again until there was nothing but bile left. Then they would kick me in my stomach for throwing up in the first place. Saying I had to keep it down one way or another. They hadn’t beat me up a single time before Zola, but now he was there and now they were told to do so, especially when I struggled. 

They shattered my fingers, they broke my ribs and on one occasion, they broke my arm. My nose had taken more punches than Steve’s at this point, and I learned to reset it on myself with my only remaining hand. I’d be coughing up blood, throwing it up too. I’d have my eyes punched out, making them swell so I wouldn’t see for days. I’d take the butt of rifles to the back of my head. And not just when I happened to throw up, this started to become a routine when  Zola wanted me out in his lab for the next series of tests and experiments. 

To combat my rapid weight loss from not being able to eat, they started to inject cocktails of vitamins, minerals and other things, hitting me like a bag of bricks once it hit my bloodstream. Hitting me so hard and so fast. The worst part of it would always pass within the hour, but if I was unlucky I’d wind up seeing shit for days. At least until they stopped adding the drugs, just giving me vitamins and minerals, which did make me feel a bit better. 

They kept me awake for days and days on end, and every single time I was about to fall asleep they just poured a bucket of ice cold water over me to wake me straight up. They’d starve me, and only really give me water to keep me going. They slammed stuff against the bars to make a racket. A person can stay awake averaging about ten days, and the process of staying awake for that long is terrible, there’s paranoia and hallucinations, and you react to everything ten times stronger than you do normally. There’s terrible headaches, tearing your skull apart, and for a moment that almost felt worse than being put in the chair. Because that pain was constant and ever thrumming under my skin. I wasn’t sure who or what I was when they finally decided to let me sleep. I was out like a light, and when I woke up I felt so good, so fantastic that given my circumstances, I cried. 

They would tie my arm to my back, with a rope that was also tied to my ankles so I couldn’t break free, they’d give a hood so I couldn’t see anything, muffling my hearing to the point where all I could hear was my own breathing and my own thoughts echoing in my head. They left me like that, for I don’t know how long, maybe five minutes, maybe a couple of hours or maybe days. You can’t keep track like that. Then they would surprise me by pouring water on me, with the hood still on my face to make me feel like I was drowning. 

They kept playing the same fucking song over and over on a record, a far too chirpy record that I’m sure was Zola’s own personal favourite; only he would have such fucked up taste in music. A song called Blau Husaren. I thank fuck that the song is essentially forgotten to the world now. 

Through it all they also mocked me. They started questioning me on where America was now, huh? Didn’t the United States look after their own? Why had no one come for me? I had become forgotten to them; they didn’t care. I had waited andwaited for them, and HYDRA had been so good to me. They had looked after me, my family would never know, Steve was dead, what else did I have to live for?

They staged a mock execution for me. Dragged me off to a room I had never been in before and raised a gun to my head. By then, I was just begging them to end it, to let it be over. They had broken me. I wanted it to be finished, I wanted to be a failure for their experiment and be set free. I wanted them to shoot me. The officer pulled the trigger, and I heard that little click that told me the gun hadn’t even been loaded in the first place. They laughed at the stunned look that I gave them. They had given me hope that it would all be over, and taken it away. 

They did all of that to break me, and then to grind the pieces into dust so I couldn’t even rebuild myself. It worked. 

 

\--  


 

I begged Zola, I begged him to just end it and get over with it. But of course he wouldn't. Not when everything was going so well. Not  when he first hand knew what the serum could do to a man and what they could push someone to do and what they could make someone endure. Wouldn’t it be grand, if HYDRA had their own version of Captain America? Someone to work from the shadows and take out the threats to a greater vision. 

Someone to work from the shadows, to set fear in their enemies. Someone who they could set loose and who could with the right skills, abilities and train of thought could tear down an entire building into dust, and even make it look like an accident? Someone who they could use to control the world. Their own little personal attack dog? 

That was how the Winter Soldier Program was started. That was how I drew the unlucky straw to be it’s first participant. At the time it felt good to be chosen. HYDRA kept telling me that what I was about to do and what I was about to become was for the good of the world. I was so, so tired of it all. If I went willingly for the Winter Soldier Program, then I would get a gentler treatment. So I went.

 

\--

 

The Winter Soldier couldn’t have one arm. He needed two in order to reach peak functionality. How was I ever supposed to shoot a shotgun or a machine gun accurately if I only had one arm? 

Zola of course, as he did with nearly everything, saw this as a challenge. As an opportunity and another obstacle to overcome. He saw this as a way to make me the perfect soldier. 

Now, sedating me or Steve is no easy task. I’m not saying it’s impossible, it is. But it’s not good for either of us and it’s a pricey experience for anyone desperately wanting to put us under. It works like this -- our bodies work on peak level. So, let’s use alcohol for a common example. We can still get drunk, but it is very  _ very  _ difficult. Because before the drink that we’re having hits our bloodstream and makes us intoxicated,it’s already breaking that shit down. 

Our recovery time is like lightning. So a regular beer doesn’t do it for us, a couple of shots of vodka in a row might give us a buzz for five minutes, but then we’d have to keep drinking them to keep that buzz. If we’d like to get truly drunk, we’d have to chug down a bottle or two of absinthe. Before we’d manage to chug  _ that  _ down, we’d already be throwing up or desperately needing a piss. Contrary to what people believe, we can’t just eat and drink everything and keep eating. We still have limits on a physical level. 

Our stomachs aren’t bigger than that of the average person. We’re still perfectly average on that part. The difference is that we need to watch what we’re eating, because we do burn through our energy faster. So we need to eat food that’s high packed with nutrients and supplements. Doesn’t mean we can’t eat fast food, but it’ll show in our moods when we do. I’ll be the first of me and Steve to admit that I can become a real bastard if I haven’t eaten properly. 

Anyway, that’s a bit how our bodies work. By now you’ve probably figured out what’s needed in order to sedate us. Much like the absinthe, any sedatives need to be highly concentrated at a constant level given to us. So they hooked me up. There was a poor HYDRA assistant who for the entire duration of the surgery, had to feed me sedatives with a 100ml syringe at the same steady pace for hours on end. With another HYDRA assistant standing beside him filling up the old syringes with more sedatives so they worked in a perfect steady circle. 

There’s a sense of irony in it to say it like this, but you know how the sleep you’ve had for a surgery is the best, deepest sleep that you’ll ever experience in your life and you’re out like a light? That applies to me as well. Up until that moment I had never slept as well as I had then, and to this day I still haven’t. 

When I woke up, ignoring the searing pain that I still had in my shoulder from where they had removed more remnants of my arm, I could feel the difference. I would tell you exactly what they did, but the truth is that I have never really listened to any of it, to any doctor who’s ever checked me over. Truth to be told, I don’t care, either. All I know is that it works, and I could feel the robotic piece attached to my left shoulder as well as my right arm. 

Which is a little bit crazy. The control over the arm was pretty much instinctive. It was like having my arm back, even if I couldn’t fully remember what that had been like to begin with, only fragments. But it’s what I imagined it to be. It was like scratching an itch that I hadn't been able to reach for years. Stretching out a limb that had been pressed tightly against my body and whose muscles had grown so stiff they might as well break. 

The first thing that I tried to do was to choke one of the doctors. After having been imprisoned for so long I finally had something I could use to my advantage, and the strength the arm had was exhilarating. 

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and assume that most of you don’t know what it’s like to strangle someone. 

It takes a lot of strength; it’s not easy. It’s not like in the movies where it takes ten, twenty seconds and then the person stops kicking and they’re passed out. It’s not that pretty, either. Faces that turn red, purple, blue, the eyes bulging and getting your hand clawed by their nails. It takes minutes. Three for brain damage, four to five if you want to be entirely sure that they’re dead. A full grown man or woman is strong, even if you think you aren’t, in moments when it counts, you’ll be strong. It’s a difficult and exhausting job to keep your hand locked over their throat and to keep the same amount of pressure all while someone is trying to pull your hand off. By the time that you’re finished, you feel it in your whole body that you’ve murdered someone. 

It’s nothing like shooting, drowning, or stabbing someone. Strangling a person is by far the most intimate death, because nine times out of ten you’re watching their eyes turn white in fear as you kill them. 

The metal arm that HYDRA had given me made it easy, because there were no muscles that could give way by the pressure and force of someone else. This arm was robotic, and it stayed locked in place because I wanted it to, and it wouldn’t give way until I willed it to. 

I could feel how the doctor gripped my arm, and I could feel how his nails scratched against the metal plates as he tried to pry me away. I could feel what was supposed to hurt, but it didn’t register like that. My head just read it as  _ this is what’s happening to you _ , without the urgency of  _ this hurts _ . 

It was fucking amazing. 

It felt like a weapon to me, one I would use to get out of there, and one I would treasure beyond measure. Perhaps this was where I made my own fault as well. By that point I had already lost so much of my own identity, that while I still felt like a person I didn’t know anymore who I was. I had lost my core. Being given the arm like that, be given a weapon so freely from HYDRA made me take to it instantly, and I formed a new identity around that metal arm. So I allowed myself to become a weapon without even needing a push. 

I didn’t get to strangle the doctor. I took a needle to the chest with the concentrated sedatives, and that’s what made me let go of the doctor. I remember Zola looking at me with that smile of his just before I dozed off and let go. I was only out for a minute, if that, but it gave them more than enough time to take all the necessary precautions with me. A form of electrical magnet placed on my arm that made moving it, controlling it, entirely impossible. 

All I could think was, that it didn’t even hurt. I just felt it, in a brutal sense of  _ this is what is happening _ . 

 

\--

 

As they gave me my new arm, it made them aware of a problem they hadn’t managed to deal with yet. While my body, my blood, and what most likely my genes now contain everything that the Winter Soldier Program needed, putting me at step two or three even the moment that Zola started it, I was still James Buchanan Barnes. I was someone with a memory, with a past, and that complicates matters when they wanted me to be so destructive.

They had to fix that, and then on top of that, how were they going to turn me against my own country and against what I fought and believed? So they made me my chair. I’ve mentioned a chair before in a previous chapter, but I never really fully explained what it was. Back then it was just a chair to shock my brain, to make me release a bunch of hormones and to essentially calm me down during my prison time, to heighten things in my brain and bring others down. Give me seizures. All in the name of science. 

A side effect of that chair was that it made my memory glitchy. I never told them, but they must have noticed some confusion in me with what they were doing. They decided to utilize that. They built me a new chair, not entirely unlike the one that got destroyed in the prison camp. But this one, this one they gave a different focus. This one they wanted to use to wipe out my memory entirely. Unfortunately for me, I was the only guinea pig they could use. Fortunately for them, and unfortunately for me, with the serum new and improved, I recovered way faster from the seizures. So they had free reign and could zap me way more than any other human being.  Gaps started to form in my memory from the frequent use while they fiddled with strength and such. 

I started to forget the names of the guards, their wives, and their children. The ones that had been my window to the outside world started to seep out of my brain entirely. I was more confused about where I was. There was still an instinctive part of me that knew to shut up. To not ask questions. 

Now this was a long process, only made longer by the fact that bit by bit I forgot that I was supposed to be in mourning. I didn’t think of a family I had left behind anymore, I knew I had parents, I knew I had Steve. But sisters? A niece? 

There is truth to what they say, that electroshock therapy helps with depression and depressive episodes, and forgetting to mourn for Steve, forgetting that I could be somewhere else made me better in a fucked up sense. I moved on from deaths and losses of my family simply because I forgot I had them in the first place. 

Believe me, I fought and I scrambled to get away from the chair that I knew would send me in a fit and cause me pain. I knew that it  would make a part of my brain crumble away and make more things of my life a mystery. 

The gaps in my mind they filled with their own wisdom -- the wisdom of HYDRA, telling me that I was to help and improve the world. That what I was about to do was for the good of the world. That the United States was the enemy, that those who wanted to tear down HYDRA were the real threat. When you have no memories of the contrary, it’s easy to fill them with the stories tailored to your own perfect vision. That was what they did with me. 

They blasted my memory away from me, gave me seizures and let me cramp up. When I woke up, back to the land of the living, they would fill my brain. It was like a sponge that they dunked in a bucket of water to fill it with what they wanted. And of course, I believed them. I knew nothing else, and they were familiar in a sense, their faces. That chair. 

It was the one constant thing in my life that I would never forget. The world didn’t travel around the sun, for as far as I was concerned. Everything circled around that damned chair. 

 

\--

 

Physically, of sorts, I was finished. They had completed their serum on me, they had given me a weapon on my left arm. They had completed yet another step in The Winter Soldier Program. Now all that remained was, of course, to turn me into The Winter Soldier.

I already had a bunch of training in me, even if I had managed to forget the largest bunch of it. But on some instinctive level, things always stuck with me. It wasn’t enough, however, this was decided during a HYDRA meeting where Zola had put me on display to some of the other higher ranking officers in HYDRA, and explained my purpose. 

The purpose that now they needed to fulfill. He had done his part, and he would remain involved to ensure that there was not a single scrap of me left in my head. I still reacted to Mr. Barnes, after all, on a level that I didn’t understand. I still knew I was an American who had fought in the war, along with a handful other facts. These all had to go. That was what he would focus on, as well as maintaining my arm. 

But the training that I was to go through, was beyond his level of expertise. He knew all about the human body, especially my body. But military training? He knew fuck all about that. So he needed to hand the program over to others, get others more involved in shaping me. 

That day, it was set in stone. The Winter Soldier program would go on. I was to leave my own personal hell, to leave myself behind and become someone who wasn’t me. I was to be a vessel, The New Fist of Hydra.

 

~~*~~

 

Bucky stared down at the pages in his hands, pressing down hard enough with his thumbs to crumple the paper. His chest felt tight, and while he was breathing through his nose, it felt like he wasn’t getting any oxygen at all. His spine was rigid. He read the title over and over again, and realised that he hated it. 

He wasn’t sure exactly how long he stood there, staring down at the paper. It could have been just a couple of seconds, or maybe it was half an hour. Time had a funny way of being warped at times.  

When he finally managed to pull his gaze away, he became suddenly aware that his eyes had started to water. The voice of Zola whispering soothing little comment to the back of his head.  _ It will be over soon, Mr. Barnes. _

What a fucking lie that had been, Bucky thought bitterly, and set direction towards the living room. His metal hand clamped down on the paper, destroying the smoothness in an instant with creases. Steve was sitting on their couch, watching some documentary on  TV. 

“Hey Buck,” Steve said, stretching his arm over the back of the couch to reach for him. An innocent sweet smile, just so happy to see Bucky, but Bucky ignored him. He walked past Steve, ignoring the brush of the other’s fingers and went straight for the glass door. He pulled it open and tugged it to the side, sending the glass rattling. He flicked the switch for the light outside and bounced down the steps. 

“Buck?” Steve repeated, now with more worry in his voice. Bucky still ignored him and went to his barbeque and tossed the pages on the grill. A couple pages flew off by the force, but as he took the lighter fluid out from under the storage, he picked them up and tossed them back on. 

“Buck?” Steve asked again, this time sounding closer and more worried. Bucky didn’t have to look to know that Steve was standing in the doorway. He was too focused on finding the matches in the storage. When he had the bright yellow box in his hand he stood up, twisted the cap of the lighter fluid and sprayed it over the pages. “Bucky, what are you doing?”

Bucky put down the bottle and opened the box of matches. He dropped the first two when he tried to strike a match, the third broke. The fourth lit up, bright in the dark evening. Bucky looked at the flame for one moment, and then tossed the match onto the paper. 

They set ablaze with a big  _ woosh _ . The heat was instantaneous, and Bucky watched the pages turn black, watched how the sides curled up into a ball and how fragments of it turned to ash. At the top of it, the big bolded HYDRA was one of the first words to disappear. 

“Bucky?” 

Steve’s hand on his shoulder made him jump up a little. He looked at Steve over his shoulder, keeping his arms folded tightly over his chest. “Babe, why are you crying? What are you doing?” Steve asked gently, looking at the burning paper in confusion. 

“I-” Bucky began, but wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to say in the first place. Was he crying? He hadn’t even noticed. He wiped at his cheek, and felt that it was wet. “Oh,” he said softly, almost pathetic. He took another sharp intake of breath and shut his eyes. “I…” He started once more, but never finished it. 

Steve’s strong arms moved around his shoulders, pulling him in for a hug. Bucky went willingly, pressing his forehead to the curve of Steve’s neck and felt the tension build up in his shoulders. He took another sharp intake of breath, felt Steve’s hand brush over the back of his head, the other rubbing steady warm circles on his back. Then, he let the sob go. 

“Shh. It’s okay,” Steve whispered to him, pressing a kiss to the side of Bucky’s head. He let him continue sobbing against his shirt. Bucky uncrossed his arms, and moved them around Steve. Clinging onto him as if he was the only solid thing in his life. 

And maybe he was. 


	10. The Winter Soldier

For the past few weeks, there had been little to no movement at all from Bucky. Steve had been fine with that. He had accepted that once Bucky had calmed down enough,  he’d tell him why he had set paper on fire in the barbeque. Steve had understood that it couldn’t be easy for Bucky to write about his time spent with HYDRA. Bucky didn’t want to talk about it, and writing it down was in it’s own a far more lonely process. 

So, he had let him be for a while. The road to recovery wasn’t always straight and smooth, those were the words that Namazzi had given them both. The words that Steve often had to remind himself of. Bucky had made immense progress since coming back to him, and that was something he was proud of. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have bad days, or bad weeks even. But, usually… they weren’t like this. 

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Bucky to lay in bed all day on occasion and not do anything. Steve had let him do that. Namazzi had told him that if Bucky felt the need to do that, then he should just listen to himself and do it. That it was a way for him to recover. 

Steve had let him lay in bed for a week, curled together and sleeping it all off. Occasionally Steve had gone in with some badly cooked food and tried to get him to eat. He couldn’t cook nearly as well as Bucky, but he tried. He had been able to tell that Bucky hadn’t wanted to eat, and he only had done it to please Steve. But Bucky had eaten, and that was all that he wanted. After that he had let Bucky do what he needed to do. 

After about a week and a half, Bucky moved out from the bedroom to the living room, not that any of his passivity changed. He instead just made himself couch bound, dragging his sheets from bed along with him. At least now he was  _ doing _ something, even if it was just watching television without really watching. 

That game had gone on for an additional month, and bit by bit, Bucky had started to talk more. He got up more and started cooking. He played with the dogs again, and occasionally went on walks with them. He went out to tend to his plants. For a while after that he seemed better, like the little burst of activity had helped him. Steve had been happy to watch that progress. 

What Steve didn’t like however, was how Bucky just ignored his laptop after his little fiery incident. Every day Steve had watched with the hope that Bucky would get up and continue working on the book. But his laptop remained shut and ignored on the desk. At first he had given him another month for it. And then another, figuring that he needed to be patient. That Bucky would continue at his own pace when he felt that he was ready again. 

Another month later however, it became clear that wasn’t the case. It was a shame, because Steve truly did believe that the project had done a lot of good for Bucky. It had given him a purpose and something to work towards. He had always seemed so proud when he had handed over another chapter for him to read. He hadn’t read the HYDRA chapter that Bucky had set on fire, the file that was safe on the computer. Bucky had asked him not to, so he had respected that wish. 

He just wished that Bucky would continue with it. But Bucky didn’t. Once they neared the six month mark, Steve decided to confront him about it. 

“So, when are you going to write again?” He asked, trying to sound as casual as possible while eating his breakfast. Bucky tossed him a look over his shoulder, then put his focus back on the eggs that he was making. “It’s been a while,” Steve continued. 

“I’m not going to finish it,” Bucky said simply, pressing the button that turned off their induction plate and lifted the pan off. “It’s a stupid idea,” Bucky said as he started to scrape the eggs onto a plate. 

“No, it’s not,” Steve argued back. Watching Bucky attentively as the other moved to sit down in front of him. “Write one more chapter? For me? Please?” Steve begged, Bucky just glared at him. A dark murderous look that told Steve even he had to tread carefully. “I just think it was good for you and all.” 

“It’s a stupid idea,” Bucky repeated and poked at his eggs with his fork. Though his voice sounded softer, so Steve figured he was making progress. Gently, he extended his leg under the table and brushed his bare foot over Bucky’s socked one. 

“I don’t think so,” Steve told him and finished his breakfast. “Please, for me?” 

Bucky glared again, softer this time. Then with a sigh he nodded. “I’ll think about it,” Bucky said before shoveling a forkful of eggs in his mouth. Steve grinned. That was about as much of progress as he’d ever get. 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 10 - The Winter Soldier**

 

The training that they put me through was excruciating. They kept me in that gym, doing whatever monotonous action over and over again until I couldn’t anymore, and then they made me do it for a little longer. They kept me doing it until I dropped.

I was lucky in a sense that I had the serum backing me up. I was in better shape than I ever had been, even better than I had been when I was a young teenager boxing. I was stronger and more resilient than I had ever been, but that didn’t stop them from driving me to the point of exhaustion. For them, that was important to know. They  _ had _ to know how far they could push me before they’d have to pull me back. Just so they knew exactly what I was capable of and what they could send me off on. And, in general, to make me get better at what I was doing. 

During the war, there had never been much need for stealth. We could come in guns blazing if we wanted to, we did most of the time. Many of the bases we found and entered were left in rubble mostly because we had to destroy everything. So my combat style was flashy, and that wasn’t what they had in mind for The Winter Soldier. My entire technique had to be changed. They wanted me to be part of a shadow shadow. 

I was mostly gone in my own head by then. There was so little of me left. Certainly no memories, and I rarely spoke English anymore. I didn’t know who I was. The only little thing that was left from me were small, peculiar little quirks that they never really got rid of. Instinctive ways and habits, like how to tie my shoelaces. You’re not even aware that you’re doing it, you don’t even know what those quirks are until someone else points them out for you. That was all that I had left of Bucky Barnes, and I had forgotten the rest.

It’s a funny thing, how you don’t really notice you’re forgetting shit like that. I don’t even know what was the last thing that I remembered. All I know for sure is that one day, all that mattered was HYDRA. All that mattered were the weapons they made me practice on, dismantling and assembling until my fingers bled. To avoid being repeatedly beaten to the ground by men much bigger and with far more practice than I had. Throwing knives over and over at targets until I could hit them blindly, making the same movement over and over until the muscles in my arm and shoulder were throbbing. And then to do the same with the metal arm, which didn’t hurt, but getting that bit of precision right took time. 

Languages, mashed into my head one after one at a confusing, unrelenting speed leaving no room for me to make mistakes. I already knew English, Russian, and German from my stay with them. But they added French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese. A splash of Hindi and basic understanding of many more languages. And if I got it wrong? Then, they would break my fingers. They healed fast enough, and by the next day they could break them again if they needed to. They taught me Science, physics and biology. All the sort of things that I wish I had learned in school rather than having to go to work. HYDRA gave me the education I always dreamt of but never had and so much more. 

They taught me basic engineering, so should I ever be stranded alone for a period of time and could fix a broken arm if it  _ ever _ were to break. It was state of the art sixty years ago, and it still is to this day, in many ways. I had to know how it functioned, how to do basic care for it and look after it. It wasn’t only engineering they taught me. They taught me basic mechanic skills, so I was able to patch up whatever vehicle that I’d need. 

They perfected my sniping skills, they perfected my skills with any weapons that mattered. They  made me perhaps a little bit too confident with the guns that they passed me. But I was great shot. I still am a great shot. They taught me more about tactics, how to plan and lay out certain missions and tasks that I was about to carry out with a high success rate. 

They dunked me in subzero water, just so I could feel what it was like to freeze to death. To be taught what to do and what not to do. They shoved me in a sauna of sorts, without food or without water until I passed out. Just so I learned what heat can do to you. 

Explosives. Tracking. Survival skills. Plants. Star navigation. Technology. Observation skills. Psychology. Human anatomy. Many, many ways of murdering someone beyond shooting and strangling them. If I were to stab them, where to stab them to make quick work. Where to stab if I wanted a messy job, or where to stab if I wanted a clean job. Torture, how to make people suffer. How to coerce them into giving me what I wanted and what I had been sent out to collect. 

They taught me different ways of combat, drilled reflexes and reactions into my spine that are still there to this day. They taught me to fight with little regard to my own safety unlike most people are trained to fight. For them, my safety didn’t matter. If I took injuries then they would just put me on cryo and let my body do the work for me. 

That was another thing, cryo. 

The Winter Soldier program was supposed to last, and they had already kept me for about four, maybe five years if I have to make a guess. I was over thirty years old, give or take, to this day I’m not entirely sure. Doesn’t matter. But what good would The Winter Soldier Program do, if they just had spent half a decade trying to train a man and he still wasn’t finished. What was I supposed to do between missions?

I couldn’t very well just sit around and age. They couldn’t send me out on small jobs either. That would take away from the fear that they wanted me to induce in traitors to HYDRA and the world. So they decided to freeze me in my own little personal cryopod. They warmed me up to that, as well. I hated the cryopod just as much as I hated the chair. They shoved me in it just to freeze me for a day at first. Then took me out and warmed me up again. 

Because one thing's for certain., waking up after having been frozen like that is nauseating. You wake up and the first thing you want to do is to throw up and empty your stomach. That took them a while to realise that they needed to put me down on an empty stomach. Then there is the chill. You know how you feel after walking through cold weather for a while? How it sometimes can take twice as long to regain your body temperature, how it can be impossible to feel and use your fingers for a good long while and how your thighs feel like frozen chunks? 

Imagine that, but for days on end, and then weeks, and then months and then years. That’s not a chill that you get out of your body just like that. No amount of heated blanket or hot water bottles will help you along that process. Near the end it wasn’t unlikely for me to go out on missions, and still feel cold by the time I had to go back under. 

And then, then there’s the matter of my arm. You know how metal grows incredibly cold right? And how it shrinks in size? It’s easy to say that my arm begins and ends where you can see it. Neatly around my shoulder. It’s easy to say that it is an actual arm because of how fluid it is in it’s movements, even I forget that sometimes and I’m wearing it. But the truth is -  it’s not just some fancy magnet that’s just wrapped around the remnants of my shoulder and that’s it. I feel it in my chest. 

They had to do a bunch of fancy research on me to ensure that the arm is connected to my central nervous system, so I can actually feel it and move it around, had to figure out a way for my brain signals to translate into robotics. Because it is a hunk of metal, it’s not just a metal bone being controlled by muscles. So I’ve got a hunk of metal and wiring all in my chest. When my arm grows cold, that cold conducts into my chest, not far off the left side of my heart and a good portion of my lung feels that cold. 

It’s painful, and for the first half hour when they pulled me up from the cryo it felt like I couldn’t breathe. But I could, to a minor extent, and because of that HYDRA never thought it was worth fixing. It did what was required. My well-being wasn’t the first priority, but it wasn’t the last either. It was somewhere in the middle. 

With the cryo system, they had figured out a way to make The Winter Soldier program immortal. When they finally had managed the last bit of Bucky Barnes out of me they considered themselves finished with their preparation of me, and gave me a new name. 

I became The Asset. 

 

\--

 

My training was finally complete and many of these skills I still hold to heart and can’t bear to look at with disgust. They’ve saved my life more than once; there might come a time where they do so again.

The Winter Soldier Program was finished, but it still needed to receive green light. They still needed to be sure that I would do everything that they asked of me. They did this in the form of a series of tests. 

One of these tests was me in a room with Zola. I was sitting by a table --  in the middle of the table was a gun. Zola came in with his smile and sat down in front of me. The gun in the middle between us. It was common knowledge to anyone in HYDRA that I hated Zola, even with nothing in my head left that belonged to me.

“Pick it up,” Zola told me. I did as I was told, and I could tell by the weight that it was loaded. The man that I hated with all my guts sat in front of me, we were alone in the room and I held a loaded gun in my hand. I could have made it easy. I could have shot him before anyone would have been able to do a damn thing about it. He was the head honcho after all. 

HYDRA does have the saying “cut a head off and two more shall rise.” But the damage of cutting of Zola’s head would be immense, the two heads that would grow in his place would be inadequate. I held that power in my hand. to do a bit of good for me. At that point, I was far from believing that HYDRA was the enemy. HYDRA had looked after and cared for me for all these years, they were the only hand that I knew who would feed me. But I knew I could do myself a whole lot of good if I removed Zola from the world. He was a monster.

He just smiled at me, confident that he was doing was right. Confident that he wasn’t at risk with the weapon that he had spent years creating. But he was, I knew that he was. I had the gun and I could shoot him in between his eyes. I could shoot one eye and shatter those glasses off him. Hell, I didn’t even need the gun, I could grab him and pull him over the table and break his neck. I had so many options. 

“Put it to your head.” He told me. 

I stared him down, but I placed the barrel against my head. I had any moment, any chance, I could string him along and I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest. A sensation that I wasn’t accustomed to feeling much anymore. 

“Pull the trigger.” 

I did, without moving the gun away from my head, without thinking, without considering, I pulled the trigger. 

 

\--

 

They were blanks. I hadn’t known that at the time of course, but they were blanks. 

There had been guards right outside the door ready to burst in should I make a grab for Zola and they carried live ammo. They would barge in the moment that I turned the gun to Zola. They had given me a chance to prove myself to them without me harming myself beyond repair. 

Still, firing blanks so close to your head is never a good idea. They still make a hell of a lot of noise, and there’s shrapnel. Half my face was scratched up, burnt from the blast and I had blown an eardrum. But it was nothing they couldn’t fix. I had proven myself reliable to them, as something who would take nearly any order and go through with it. Even if that included shooting myself. 

With that they were just two stamps away from deeming The Winter Soldier Program completed. 

 

\--

 

The next time that I was given a gun in my hand, I was in a room not entirely unlike the one where they had made me shoot myself. I was all healed up from the blank to my face. There were no more burns, and I could hear again. The shrapnel had been pulled out and removed. Of course, I didn’t remember this. They had wiped my mind,  agreeing that it would be the custom from now on. 

It was me in the room with the gun in my hand, Zola beside me, and in front of us a woman cradling her child. The girl couldn’t be more than seven years old, the woman was sobbing as she held the girl close to her chest. Talking to us in Spanish, begging us not to do it, whatever we were going to do. I didn’t know. I didn’t make any assumptions. 

“Shoot the girl,” Zola told me. The woman must have understood because she hugged the child tighter to her chest and started begging to Zola in Russian all of a sudden. That complicated matters, of course. I had only been tasked with killing the girl, and I couldn’t very well shoot her with the way her mother was holding her to her chest. 

I had to punch her to make her lose her grip. Grab the girl by one of her legs and pulled her away. The little girl was shrieking, calling out for her mother in a panic who had the front of her dress being coated in dark red blood. I remember how the girl went totally still when she felt the barrel of the gun to the back of her head. One last gasp of breath, and I shot her. The mother just howled and pulled the lifeless body of her daughter back to her, muttering a prayer in Spanish, rocking them back and forth. 

“Good,” Zola praised, and ticked something off on his notepad. “Now, shoot the mother.” 

She was an easier target now when she was sitting in the same spot. Swaying as she cradled her daughter, sobbing. I raised the gun again and I shot the mother, too. 

I passed my second test. Now, they just needed to give me an actual trail mission.

 

\--

 

It was in late winter. It had been the first time I had seen the night sky in what felt like years. But I didn’t really care much about the beauty of the stars. If there were stars even, I assume there were, it was a clear evening with no clouds and a full moon. The full moon, I remember because it was nearly as bright as day on the snow. That I knew, because that gave me a tactical advantage to keep in consideration. 

It had been the first time that I had been outside in years. The first time that I had the chance to breathe in fresh, cold air that wasn’t damp or stuffy. I remember thinking that there was a sort of crispness to the air, and my breath left my nostrils in little white puffs. 

Zola and the other HYDRA officials had managed to scrounge up a little trail mission for me. Something small a three hour drive away. They had warned me that I would be watched, of course I would be watched. They wouldn’t send anyone to accompany me but they wanted me to know where I was. There were trackers in me by that point. They had sewn a couple in my clothes, in the heel of my boot, and if I were to cut them out then there would still be three more in me. 

There was one that they had placed in my metal arm, under a couple of plates that I could see if I jammed a knife in between them and forced the plates apart. There was a second one in my palm, this I’m certain of because it’s a scar. Even super healing can’t help much if you keep cutting open the same wound open and open. If I pressed just right I could feel the small pill sized tracker in my flesh. 

The third one I didn’t know where they had put it. They must have done so when they had put me under, or taken advantage of the time when I had been waking up. Later on I learned that the scar of what I thought had been a bullet wound in my thigh turned out to be the insertion wound. 

HYDRA had dropped me off in the Russian countryside on a woodland road and given me my orders. There had been a defector. They figured that they might as well hit two birds with one stone. Give me my trial and they would be rid of their little problem and have all their stolen documents back. I wasn’t given much, just a couple of handguns, knives. They wouldn’t even give me a map. They just gave me one look of it, pointed out where I could find the deserter, where the rendezvous point was and then off they were. 

I really only needed one look of the map to know where I had to go and where I was located, as well as how to get there. I didn’t struggle much. Truth to be told, the only annoyance of the mission was the snow, and that the boots they had given me got cold so my feet were freezing. Not as if this was out of the ordinary, I was always cold by then.

The deserter was hiding out in a small rundown house, a dacha, he was playing it clever. He had boarded up the windows and pulled the curtains. He hadn’t lit a fire or any candles, not wanting to be seen during his one or two nights that he was supposed to stay there. So he and his family would be just as cold as I was, it almost made the situation better. 

They had known that someone was coming for them. They knew that the man, Vasiliev, had pissed off a lot of people in his attempt to sell information to the United States in exchange for safe passage out of Russia. They were scared that they wouldn’t make it to the exchange date, which of course, they wouldn’t. 

Vasiliev and his family, which contained  his wife and a teenage son, had been waiting for someone to come for them. They expected that to be in a way that it always had been, with five or six men holding rifles and ready to open fire. They had expected someone to come through the front door, just kick it in and step inside. I didn’t do that, because that was what expected. 

The windows at the top floor, which was just one bedroom, had also been boarded shut as preventative measures, or just to make it look more real, I’m not entirely sure. They must have been holed up there for quite some time, I imagined,because the snow on the rooftop was clear of footprints.

Still, I managed to pry the wooden boards off the window quietly enough, and unlock the window. It was an old dacha, so I could easily slide a knife in to unlock the hatch. It had been built out in the middle of nowhere, far away from any civilization, far enough that not even junkies would care to come and break in and steal anything of value. 

I entered the dacha quietly, hearing the muffled voices coming from downstairs complaining about the cold. I shut the window after me, not wanting to blow my cover because of a gust of wind or anything of the like. I listened in on the conversation for a couple of minutes, trying to determine if they had noticed my entrance or not. They hadn’t. That left me to decide how I wanted to go on about it. The dacha was small enough so if I took out one of them, that the other two would know, and I couldn’t go downstairs without revealing myself.

At least HYDRA had given me free choice on how to deal with this situation. There had been no demands made on how the deserter had to die, as long as he was dead. So I just took one of my handguns and went downstairs. I made it easy for myself, and shot Vasiliev’s wife first, making her the only kill shot. I shot Vasiliev in his thigh, and his son as well. Children always made it easier to get the truth out of targets. I gripped Vasiliev’s hair, and smashed his head on the corner of the table, demanding that he tell me where the documents were. It didn’t work at first, so I just smashed his head again and then pointed my gun to the son, that made him spew the truth like it was a waterfall. 

He showed me the briefcase and everything, unlocked it to show that it was all there. By then, he was already begging to just let him and his son go. That his son needed medical help, that they swore they would be quiet and not tell anyone. I shut the briefcase and took it. Then I shot Vasiliev, and his son last. 

I made it back to the rendezvous, and remained quiet for the entire ride back to the base. I wasn’t to speak until I was spoken to. Once at the base I delivered the briefcase to a HYDRA official and Zola, and gave them the code combination to the lock, allowing them to access the documents. 

The mission was a success, I had gained my last stamp of approval. Now The Winter Soldier program was complete, now I could be used all over the world, for whatever purpose my handler deemed fit for me, or need my skills for. It was a wonderful sense of irony that the best friend of Captain America would now be the one to bring everything he had fought for down.

 

\--

 

I travelled all over the world like this. I saw more countries and cities that people only dream about. I got to see Russia in a way that most people never will. I got to see China, Vietnam, Japan, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Australia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, South Africa, Congo, Botswana, Namibia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Gyana, Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Czechia, Poland, and Romania. 

The list is by far larger than what I’ve mentioned, I’ve been to places whose names I can’t remember. I’ve seen cities and I’ve seen lost and forgotten villages. I’ve been fed all sorts of food from around the world, seen all sorts of creatures, seen all sorts of funky fruit. I got to live a backpackers dream, in an odd way. 

In every place where they woke me up, they had a mission for me. I was credited with a dozen assassinations, but that was barely a fragment of what I’ve actually made to do in my lifetime. I was a ghost story after all, so there were only a handful of assassinations that they actively stamped on me and those were generally the ones where I had been sloppy and was rightfully punished for it too. 

There’s by far more that I was made to do, if you’ve got the time, the skills and the patience to unravel all the dumped documents on the internet that they have on me you’ll figure it all out yourself. You’ll figure it out that I’m not bullshitting any of you in regards of where I’ve been either. By all means, knock yourself out. I’m way beyond hiding and denying things now. 

But yet, when I find myself looking back on the things that I’ve seen, there are some instances where I actually feel grateful that I was where I was at a given moment. Because of HYDRA, I got to see and live through some of the most amazing moments in human history, moments where I am the only one still standing and having seen it happen in the first place. 

I was there when the Russians shot Laika up to space, from a safe distance but I saw the rocket go up. I was in the United States when they had the very first Super Bowl back in ‘67. I got to see the very first computer being used in our base, and was given training in how to work it. Later on, I also got to see the internet happen. I got to see the Berlin wall fall, I was there in a building, watching as people were tearing it down. 

I got to see so many amazing things, and they made me forget so many amazing things. All of these remained deep in my head somewhere, not erased, but merely covered up for me to rediscover, which has been just as terrible as it has been wonderful. Because even The Winter Soldier could see beauty in the world, even if he couldn’t quite understand it or appreciate it at the time. But he does now, I do now. 

 

\--

 

I’ve talked before of how in their attempts to make me forget everything that made me who I was. That there would always remain little remnants of who I was. In the shape of shoe lacing and that kind of thing. There’s more than that of course, and one of the things that I never really forgot, that was always kind of instinctively there, was my love for dogs. I think I would have forgotten that too, had I not been around them and had I not seen them as much as I did. It’s probably the one thing that I managed to keep a secret from them as well. If they noticed, they never really cared and let me go about my ways.

But HYDRA often worked with dogs over the years I was awake as the Winter Soldier. They would have these wonderful dogs that they worked with. German Shepherds, big and strong dogs, clever and independently-thinking. Trained to the bone and who did their job well. Who would walk neatly while heeling and who would chase down anyone they were set upon the moment the lead let them go for it. They were brilliant. I never once got to handle them. 

Because they were such high end working dogs for HYDRA, that meant that there was usually little playtime for them. The only praise they got was when they performed their tasks as desired by a couple of pets and a piece of dried meat. It was all they ever had known, so they did all the tasks willingly without much trouble, and they got joy from it too. 

It was one summer, and I was to wait outside with the dogs, while my handler at the time and a couple of other goonies, went inside to gather information and have their lunch in the shade. I’m not entirely sure what compelled me to go over to them and to pet them like that. But I did, I wound up kneeling in front of them and scratching them behind their ears and muttering praise to them. 

With a little bit of time still ahead of us, I grabbed a branch and threw it for them. Sure, I could just sit and wait for time to pass like anyone else, and I was quite good at that too. But why would I? When I had three dogs that hadn’t played for most of their lifetime and were now given the opportunity to play with someone? 

I ended up throwing fetch for them for about half an hour, and I remember thinking after it all that I felt better for some reason. 

  
  


\--

 

They had more purposes for me beyond using me as a weapon to kill people. I was above such things as regular beatings and extortions, that was for the lower ranks. In an odd fucking way, I took pride in that. I took pride in what I did because I was the best at what I did. I had been made to be the best. It was the only thing that I could hold on to. The only thing that I could make mine.

As a result of that, occasionally, they wanted the best to train others. I was good at that too, because I went at it methodically, I never hurt anyone when I was told not to. I never lost my patience, because it wasn’t mine to lose. They were given training, but they were kept who they were to easier blend in during other situations. 

So, if they had them trained by The Winter Soldier, they would learn from the best, and also instantly know who would come after them if they chose to jump ship. Because the thing was, they thought they were trained by the best, they thought that they would be on par with me and the only advantage I’d have would be my weight and arm. But, the truth was that my superiors told me to ensure that they didn’t surpass me. And I did. 

It’s how I found myself in The Red Room on a couple of occasions. Looking back, I never really thought of how fucked up it was that I was teaching little girls how to strangle someone, where to hit someone to break their joints, where to shoot someone to just cause pain and not have them bleed out, perfect for interrogations. Where to shoot someone for instant, clean kills. How to have them overpower someone smaller than them, and how to have them use their smaller size to gain advantage on someone that outweighed them with over a 150lbs. 

When it came to it, many years later through sporadic events. I found myself having to shoot many of the girls that I had trained there. For jumping ship, for mistreating their orders, for trying to run away, and sometimes for something as simple as falling in love and wanting a normal life. 

 

\--

 

For all that HYDRA did to keep track of me, there was one moment where they actually lost me. The mission went to hell, I’m not going to go into details. I did my part, but it’s not always easy finding your way to a mission extraction point in the middle of a war zone. And while I made it there, and they did too, the problem was that they had gotten gunned down before I got there. 

It was the Six-Day War in the middle east. For three weeks, I wandered around there, trying to go from HYDRA safehouse to safehouse and signal where I was. I still had the trackers in me, but I was only following the protocol they had set out for me. Back then we were in the middle east  a lot. Russia was involved quite a bit in the middle east during the Cold War, and as a result I was there. 

Eventually they found me, and they brought me back. They realised however that during the three weeks that I had been up and walking about, much, much longer than my usual time, that they needed to implement a failsafe in my mind. Because they noticed that I was far too feisty with them. I still went willingly, but I had started to ask questions, I didn’t blindly do things anymore, and I wanted to know reasonings to why. I was not meant to do that.

Now, the protocol of using me meant that every time they woke me up and put me back under, they would wipe my mind clear, leaving my head empty for them to fill with what they needed me to focus on. There was no chance of them being able to wipe me if I was on my own, and now I had just been alone for a couple of weeks. What if next time it’d be months? If I started to ask questions and started to argue, there were chances that I would start to remember. And I did. Flashes of things that I couldn’t explain, and stupidly enough, I asked them about that too. 

So they hypnotized me and implemented several failsafes in my head. A series of words that would shoot me right back to who I was supposed to be for them, along with a couple of other words. So when they found me in the field, and I was proving to be a handful for them, they just had to say the words and I would be, reset so to speak. I’m not going to write here what those words are. I’ve got them torn out of my head now. So even if you did happen to know them, they wouldn’t work beyond just making me angry with the fact that you do know them. 

There’s more of them still in there, probably, a couple I haven’t even discovered myself. Which leads me to a funny story actually -- I didn’t know that they had planted  _ Sputnik _ like that in my head. We were just playing cards one evening, Steve and I with Sam and Clint. I can’t remember what the topic of conversation was, but Clint mentioned Sputnik in an off-hand manner and the next thing I know. I’m passed out and slamming my forehead into the table and getting a bloody nose. 

Can you imagine the trial and error of repeating that conversation over and over until they figured out that it was  _ Sputnik  _ that made me pass out? Oh, they had a blast with me.  

 

\--

 

Karpov, to this day, is the best handler that I ever have had. I wouldn’t say that he treated me humanely, he followed the protocols that were set for me, but he at the very least treated me with respect, being fully aware that I was a weapon and that you could very likely wind up shooting yourself in your own foot. So, that was refreshing. 

He wiped me when he woke me up, he wiped me when he put me down under, and he ensured that he always had my safe words with him which he used for safety measures. But he fed me real food, rather than the injections that most previous handlers gave me, served me all of that in a cocktail instead. He let me get warm with a blanket while he was briefing me, and based on the mission he let me choose what weapons to bring, and if I needed extra men with me or not. I had respect for Karpov as a handler. 

He was the one who set me off on the mission that undoubtedly is the one that I’m most known for. In 1991, I woke up in New York, and my targets were the Starks. I picked my weapons, picked my vehicle, and off I went. I knew what route they were going to take, so I waited, and when the car drove by I set after them with my motorbike. 

I shot into the car, and Howard swerved and hit a tree. I pulled over and the first thing I did, was to go and check if the cargo was there. It was safely in the trunk, the briefcase that Karpov had asked for. The key for improving The Winter Soldier Program. 

It was weird, because Howard was trying to crawl away. To little use, I had shot him after all. So I grabbed him and pulled him back. He looked at me, almost as if he couldn’t believe who he was seeing and I remember that it baffled me. The way he frowned a little, how he suddenly seemed to have forgotten that he was about to be murdered and he looked up to me, and called me Sergeant Barnes, as if he knew me. 

But, I didn’t know him. He seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place ever having met him before. All I knew of Howard Stark was what I had been allowed to read in the file. It didn’t feel like that, though when I saw him like that. It felt like a piece of me was missing, but not enough for me to question. I wasn't to question. So I punched him, twice to knock him out and put him back in the car. I strangled his wife beside him with my right hand and got the scratches to prove it. 

The car was set on fire, and I took the briefcase and brought it to Karpov. I delivered it to him, and I knew well enough to keep it to myself that Howard Stark had known me. I let go of the fact that he had felt familiar. I knew I was to go into the chair, and I knew that they would wipe me all over, and I would soon forget this nagging feeling that I was supposed to know more. 

Such was the fate of the winter Soldier. 

 

~~*~~

 

“There, happy now?” Bucky asked, harsher than he had intended. He raised the bundle of papers for Steve to see. He hadn’t enjoyed writing the chapter. It had taken him longer than any of the other chapters. Most of the time, he got a chapter done in three days if he just sat down and wrote them. This one had taken him two weeks. Writing little snippets at a time and going for long extended dog walks when it became too difficult. 

Then there had just been moments where he had avoided it in general and stayed in the greenhouse, trimming his plants and looking after them. Slow work, but Bucky had reminded himself over and over that he didn’t have a deadline. There was nobody waiting for the finished story, so far he was only writing it for one person only and that was himself, with the intention of one day showing it for the world to see. He would take that when it came. He preferred to have the full book finished and just drop it off with a publisher, letting them take the matters into hands.e could let go of it completely that way. 

“Happy with what?” Steve asked, confused. He didn’t raise his eyes from the painting he was working on. Bucky  tilted his head a little bit to the side and watched how Steve added a bit of purple to a flower, a careful movement full with precision. Once Steve was content he looked over his shoulder to Bucky. He raised the chapter again. 

“I wrote... finished the chapter.” Bucky looked at the fat bold text on front and frowned at it. Not entirely sure how he felt about chapter being in Steve’s hands. He wouldn’t feel as guilty, Bucky imagined, as he would have done with the chapter about HYDRA. But Steve would still blame himself to some extent for what Bucky had gone through. He really didn’t want to feel that extra tight hug that evening when they went to bed. He didn’t want to be pitied, not anymore. 

“That’s great!” Steve put away the paint brush on the table beside him and spun around in his stool, looking to Bucky with a smile like sunshine. Happy to have pushed him back into doing something, working on the project. And fine, Bucky had to admit, while it had sucked to write the chapter, it did feel good to get the load off his chest. He just had been caught off guard with how much the chapter about HYDRA had affected him.

The Winter Soldier… that person he had managed to distance himself from, managed to look at them objectively. He hadn’t been responsible, it had taken him years to realise that. 

“Can I read it?” Steve’s question snapped Bucky out of his daydream, and he looked to Steve. It almost broke his heart to see him so hopeful.

“I…” Bucky looked back to the pages, flipping through some in his hand. The bit where Zola had made him put a gun to his own head and pull the trigger made his stomach turn. “No.” Bucky shook his head and looked back up to Steve. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think… I think it wouldn’t be good for you,” he said, earnestly. Steve blinked at him, but he nodded and gave him a small smile. 

“Okay, your decision.” Steve reached out to Bucky, taking him by his wrist and pulling him in. Not once did Steve glance to the papers, instead he just looked up to Bucky, and with a light press of his thumb on Bucky’s cheek he made him look down and kissed him gently. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered softly after. 

All Bucky found himself capable of doing was smiling in return. 


	11. HYDRA Uprising

“What time is Sam coming again?” Bucky asked absentmindedly, leaning over the kitchen table and flicking through a cookbook. He was looking something in particular that evening for dinner, but had no clue what he wanted to eat at all. 

“Got to pick him up at six.” Steve’s voice sounded muffled -- Bucky glanced sideways and saw that the door of the fridge was open. Steve was head first into it, Bucky rolled his eyes and returned to the cookbook on the table. He didn’t doubt that Steve would find something to chew away on, and it most likely would be the absolute last thing that he approved of. He might as well do them both a service and stop looking. “So we’ll probably be back here about seven. I’ve already fixed the guest bedroom for him, don’t gotta worry about that.” 

“Mmm.” Bucky mused and flicked another page in the cookbook. Maybe he could do a soup… no, too light. Chilli? Steve would have to stop by the grocery store on his way to pick up Sam, but there were worse things in the world. While he couldn’t depend on Steve to cook something edible, he could depend on Steve to follow instructions on what to buy. 

Steve came in,pressed a kiss on Bucky’s cheek, then opened the packet of pudding in his hands and peered over into the book. “That looks nice, think you can make that?” Steve asked, tapping a picture of pasta with a mushroom sauce. 

“I can make that,” Bucky responded before he even had read through the instructions for it -- he was confident that he could. And by the looks of it, all that Steve would have to pick up from the store would be mushrooms and some yellow onions. “Sam’ll eat it?” He asked, looking to Steve as he shoved a spoonful of chocolate pudding in his mouth. Steve nodded. “Then, I’ll make that.” 

“Can I tell Sam?” Steve asked, spoon still in his mouth as Bucky grabbed a post it note and a pen. Bucky snorted. 

“That we’ll have pasta with a mushroom sauce? Sure, you can tell him.” Bucky put the note down on the back of his laptop and started writing down the amount of mushrooms that Steve needed to bring, and the same for the yellow onions. 

“No I mean,” Steve pulled the spoon from his lips and put it back in his pudding package. “That you’re writing a book, can I tell him?” Steve asked again, scraping at the bottom of the package with the spoon. He looked disappointed at the small size of the portion. 

“Sure, he’s going to be in the next part anyway. Pick this up for me?” Bucky finished writing down the shopping list after having added laundry detergent, beer, and bananas to the list. He tore the post it off, and smacked it on Steve’s chest. Steve looked at it, confused at first, then shrugged and put it in the back pocket of his jeans. 

“What you going to be writing about next?” Steve asked, managed to dig out a little bit more chocolate pudding from the packet and shoved the spoon in his mouth before tossing the packet in the sink. 

“DC, and how all that went down.” Bucky shrugged, and turned to lean against the table. “Been writing about that now, should be able to finish it before you guys come home tonight. “You can read from that again and onwards. Sam should read it too, I want his blessing or whatever on the bits that he’s in. And if he won’t give it, I’ll just refrain from mentioning him.”

“I think he’ll be okay with it, I mean, it’s not like he lives an anonymous life anymore.” Steve shrugged, leant in to give Bucky a kiss on his cheek. “I’m gonna walk the Winnie. Want me to take Roxy as well?” 

“Yes please,” Bucky mused, shut the cookbook and put it back on the shelf above the kitchen table. Then, he slid into his chair and opened the laptop. 

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 11 - HYDRA uprising**

 

Pierce was, for lack of a better word, a jackass. You all know the sort, everybody has met someone like him in their lives. The sort of jackass who walks and talks like he owns the world, who never once in his life has been told no and therefor thinks he has the right to everything. Who never once really had a large obstacle in life and always has had their messes cleaned up for them, so they still wholeheartedly believe that their way of doing things is the only way of doing things. 

I’ve had tons of shitty handlers in my lifetime and my time as The Winter Soldier, but I firmly believe that Pierce was one of the worst on that level. He single handedly managed to tear down everything that HYDRA had been working for in a matter of days. Sure there were many outstanding factors as well, such as Nick Fury and Captain America being on his ass, and I suppose that’s where it truly shows that he was a jackass. 

Because he used me like I was the King of chessboard pieces, fully forgetting that I actually was meant to be used as a Queen. He thought that I was the trump card, who could smooth out all the creases that he had managed to lay on the world with his careless planning. Which is just a miracle in his own, he was the god damn project leader of Project Insight, he had his path made and paved for him. All he had to do was to walk it, but instead he strayed from the path because of his own personal vendettas and letting Nick Fury get to him. Which only shows how he wasn’t that good at what he did. 

I don’t know exactly what Fury had said to Pierce to rile him up like he did, and I’m not in the position to ask him about that either. Whatever he said, Pierce didn’t like what he was hearing and it made his knees shake. So he called me in. Pierce was my handler at the time, so I was already stashed away in Washington. Right within reach for him should he need me. 

I was woken up, wiped, given an injection of the regular cocktail of vitamins and other supplements and had my arm serviced. By the time that they were finished with all of that, Pierce appeared where they had been housing me, in the vault of the federal savings bank. He came to me, and he briefed me of my mission to put a bullet, a knife, anything in Nick Fury so he wouldn’t live to tell another tale. They handed me a uniform, my mask and gave me an arsenal of weapons and told me who I could order around in order to get my mission done, and set me on our way. 

From the moment I stepped away from Pierce to get going on the mission, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Pierce was so rattled, so frustrated and so angry from whatever exchange had happened, that he set me out in broad daylight. Now given other circumstances I wouldn’t have batted an eye at that, but there wasn’t any unrest in DC at the time. I couldn’t just walk down the street and blend in, like I could in Syria, in the midst of a war and bombings. 

I was the ghost story, and I’ve mentioned before that I took some weird level of pride in that. And knowing that he had sent me out like that? That threatened my pride, which I had no chance or opportunity to do anything about. I just had to accept it like everything else. 

It was easy enough to find Fury. He was driving around in a car from SHIELD, and I did have most of SHIELD’s resources available for me to use. Tracking him down wasn’t that difficult, and finding a couple of HYDRA sleeper agents amongst the police force wasn’t that difficult either. 

What happened next is something which I believe was never fully explained to the public. Some of you might remember about the news in Washington a couple of days before the helicarriers crashed into the Pontiac, of the big SUV that had just gotten flipped over in the middle of the street after a car chase? Many of you, and many conspiracy theorists went about to say that the things were connected. SHIELD, the police force, nobody really came out and confirmed that, and I think that perhaps they wanted to keep the incidents as separate from one another as they could. 

But no, that SUV being flipped over and the car chase was orchestrated by me, and it had everything to do with the helicarriers crashing into the Pontiac. At first, I had the HYDRA sleeper agents in the police force chase him down. The idea was to herd him into some alley where I could do my work and mission discreetly, I still wanted to avoid being out in the public with all my heart, even if I knew that Pierce had the power and the abilities to erase any sort of footage of me wandering in the streets. The problem was just that I didn't have much faith that he would do it. So I worked from a self-protecting standpoint. I had to make sure that the mission would be a success, and completed in such a way that wouldn’t further aggravate my handlers, because they could terminate The Winter Soldier Program at any given moment if they wished. Through it all, I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to receive a bullet to my head when I was under and frozen in ice, put down like some dog. Which I knew that they would do, of course they would do that, hadn’t they sent me to do the same? 

Fury however, wasn’t an easy target, and I had a small window of opportunity to work with. I had to work in broad daylight and I had an impatient handler, so I had to make quick work of it. And Fury, well, Fury isn’t helpless, he very much avoided being herded into an alley, he very much avoided the HYDRA sleeper agents wanting to tear him out of his car. I had little choice when he was driving down that road but to get out and put a stop to the SUV myself. 

Now excuse the geek, but for that I had an absolutely wonderful weapon that I kind of miss a little bit. I flipped Fury’s car like it was nothing with the help of a Magnetic Disk Grenade, which does pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The disk was fired and latched onto the machinery underneath Fury’s car, and when it detonated the car flipped over in such a beautiful, almost poetic way and arch that it gave me goosebumps. 

The problem was that I had fired the disk off too late, and Fury was driving at a high speed. So the car flew in the air for quite a bit before coming back onto the road, and then spun even further. By the time that I reached the car and pulled the door of it’s hinges, Fury had made his escape with a mouse hole. Which is essentially, well, if you’ve seen Star Wars just imagine a lightsaber strong enough to cut through the metalworks of a car and even asphalt. I always wanted a mouse hole, was never given one to work with unfortunately, but at least I had a Magnetic Disk Grenade. 

Fury had slipped away, beaten to pulp from flying around in a car like that, hitting the ground hard and spinning around. I’m sure he felt that for a good couple of weeks. But there I now was, in the middle of the fucking road and I hadn’t managed to put a bullet in his head. Frustrating. 

I couldn’t let him get away, not with a jerk like Pierce holding my lead. I had to track Fury down again, and this time, I went ahead and took my own, preferred approach to it. I dismissed the agents that worked with me, and traced Fury down myself. There was a tracker in his phone, which he may or may not have been aware of. Either way, that tracker led me right to where he was hiding out. I waited in the dark for a clear shot. 

Fury wasn’t just anyone, he was clever enough to stay clear of windows and to sit in a blind spot, which annoyed me a little bit. Because the apartment that he was hiding out in wasn’t a safe house, I could tell that much, it looked to lived in and from the scope I could tell that there was fresh trash in the bin, and the blinds were only down in the bedroom, which is a pretty clear sign, despite that there were light curtains covering the windows. 

What I marvelled about the most however, was that every single bit of furniture was arranged in such a way that a sniper wouldn’t get a clear shot at anyone. Aggravating for me, and it told me that Fury had gone to someone with military experience and expertise to let them know that he had been attacked. 

That was a minor game changer for me because that meant I had to be more on my toes when I finally got a shot in at Fury and could take it. I was prepared for it, and I wasn’t worried, I had taken out many before with military experience and expertise and I was positive that whoever lived in that apartment wouldn’t be different. 

So I did what I did best, and I waited. I waited for someone to come home and to stand in a window, or at least give me a hint as to where I could find Fury in the apartment. Someone did come home eventually, and was clever enough to never turn on the lights. And then, I saw someone, just a hint of them in the window. I followed them with the scope, trying to get a look at his face and see what direction he was talking to. 

He was talking right in front of him, and looking down. At one point he raised his gaze, fixed on whoever he was talking to. I aimed the gun, which was not a little weapon. This one was designed with armor piercing bullets, so even if Fury were to wear a vest it would do him little good. The weapon had enough strength to blast through the wall. 

I fired the shot, confident that I had hit, I had hit targets that had been way more hidden than Fury, I’ve shot targets through people and through storms. So just about sixty feet and a wall was a piece of cake for me. 

I allowed myself a couple of seconds, allowed the recoil to sink into my shoulder and to absorb the pain, get it loose and stand up again. I looked through the window and I confirmed what I already knew, that I had shot Fury. The man was kneeled beside him with a shield of all things in hand, and another woman burst in through the door with a gun. 

The blonde man looked up, and I turned and ran. 

He did have military training after all, and while I was still confident in my skills to take him, he wasn’t my mission. I had completed what I had been sent down there to do, and now the next step that I had to take was to make my escape, as quickly, and as quietly as I could. I did expect some sort of pursuit, but I didn’t expect for the man to be a jackass and throw himself out of his own window, and actually even make it to the building I was standing on. 

Not an average soldier, got it. I ran, as fast as I could and I could hear how he ran like a freaking bull in the building a couple of floors beneath me, smashing through more walls and windows with little finesse. He didn’t care about sneaking up on me and taking me down, this was a man that I had angered by shooting Fury, who wanted some form of vengeance. 

I had to jump off the building, and I knew with the willingness of the other to jump through windows that he’d reach up to me. I had two choices, to either startle him or to fight him. Already having had a botched first assassination attempt at Fury, I was in no mood to complicate my second and now successful attempt. I went with startle. 

The window behind me shattered, I heard his feet crunch the glass. I didn’t hear how he continued to run. Instead I heard a sound through the air, almost like a  _ woosh _ . I knew that it was the damn frisbee of a shield that he had been holding. So I stopped, turned and caught it with the metal arm and stared at him. 

I didn’t know it then, but I was staring at Captain America. I was staring at Steve Rogers, the man that I had loved for most of my life with all my heart. But I had forgotten every single thing about him. 

I was wearing a part of my mask, so he didn’t recognize me either. 

I threw the shield back at him, and I could see just enough that he was stunned by the strength that I had thrown it back with before I bolted and made my escape. I left Steve standing there on the roof holding the shield and I disappeared, setting direction towards Pierce to brief him on how the mission had gone. I had lost my tail, and I didn’t lose any sleep over having met Captain America. 

I didn’t even know who he was, all I knew was that he had annoying interior decorating, an ugly ass yellow and blue rug, and a shield that he used like a frisbee. 

 

\--

 

Pierce made a mistake -- he didn’t wipe me in between. He had ordered for me to brief Pierce in his own home rather than at the Federal Reserve Bank. He didn’t follow the protocol, mostly because he figured that there was no risk of me glitching, so to speak. He only intended for me to complete one more mission, I think, and then he would put me back under. 

He really should have known, and he really should have followed protocol. He knew who I was, and he knew who he was sending me straight back to. He knew who the two targets were to me, both in my old life and in my present life. He knew, like anyone else that Steve Rogers had been my best friend. Pierce knew that the Black Widow had once upon a time crossed my path as well and that she at one point had meant something to me. Jasper Sitwell was almost hilariously unimportant in that assignment, but he was a resource I was allowed to use if I wished. 

Maybe he just thought that there was no risk. Maybe he just thought that I had been under HYDRA’s control without a slipup for so many decades, that I had been wiped so many times over and over and that I genuinely wouldn’t remember who they were to me. If events had played out differently that may have been the case, maybe I would have gone to the grave not knowing who they were and who I once upon a time had been. 

With my new targets assigned to me, I went off once more. Pierce wanted it done quickly, and that left little time for me to prepare to do it properly. I knew that Steve Rogers would not be a man to let himself get sniped in his own home. Something that still pissed me off, and I knew that he was someone I needed to handle with care. The way he had kept up with me and busted through glass and wall and had hurled the shield at me with quite some formidable strength. That told me I needed to be careful. 

Then there was the Black Widow, who they told me was one of my Red Room girls. That also told me what I was dealing with, that told me her strength and her weaknesses that I would have implemented in her. That was, of course, if she hadn't found those weaknesses and strengthened  them. They also told me that she was a Red Room girl who had jumped ship, and who I once had shot when I had been sent to assassinate another target. They also told me that I had managed to kill said target with the very same shot that I had used on her, and that sent a surge of pride through me, pride at the only bit of praise that I ever got, and if it happened to be through violence, then so be it. 

With those two targets in mind, and the way that Pierce had urged me to get it done as soon as possible, I knew that my only shot at getting this done was to overwhelm them and have it be as messy as I could. That once more meant that I would be walking around in broad daylight and people would see me, but you want to know the funny thing? I oddly enough thought  _ fuck it _ , in regards to that. I thought  _ let it be a mess then _ , it was my own little way of giving Pierce shit back for handling me improperly and lacking a stern hand on me. I wanted him to see the consequences and face them with what happened if he handled me with such lack of care and I wanted him to feel frustrated at having to erase news footage, Youtube footage, and statements of people. 

I know I’ve referred to myself as a dog a couple of times, but in a way I truly was. This was just like a dog who has been under a stern hand and has received proper training from their own, who is put by another master and who doesn’t treat the high energy, high prey and high drive dog exactly as the other master and is a little bit lax on rules. That dog is going to start to tear the couch apart. A little act of rebellion if you must name it something. 

There was no point in trying to trace down Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. They would know how to keep their heads low when someone was chasing them and there was no point in wasting my time and energy in finding them and driving myself away from Washington, which I felt certain that they would return to. They did have information on Jasper Sitwell, and I was certain that Natasha would use that to her advantage and that they would resurface, sooner rather than later because Project Insight was about to happen. 

So while I waited for them to prepare, I gathered the my weapons again and I gathered a team for me to use. It mostly consisted of the same guys who had been trying to take down Fury with me in my first attempt, I preferred to keep the number of people that I worked with down to the bare minimum just to play it safe. We tracked Jasper Sitwell, which meant essentially, I tracked him. 

I had training in staying awake for three days straight which they did not, so they were sleeping in the cars and in the SUV’s that we had through the night, napping and eating and joking through the day while I kept my focus on what mattered. Because sure, they were my little entourage but the mission was mine to handle, so they got to relax. 

Sure enough, the very next day around lunchtime, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff grabbed Sitwell for themselves just like I had planned. I watched them conduct a brief interrogation which I honestly found kind of funny, it involved them kicking Sitwell down a building and a third guy, nameless but with a ridiculous suit of mechanical wings, catching him and bringing him back to the other two. I could only imagine how fast Sitwell must have spilled the beans to them after that, hell I’ll even admit, I would have been a little bit rattled at that. 

We trailed them from a distance, and carefully so, because I knew that they would be on guard, and the Red Room training that Natasha Romanoff had would only have her looking over both of her shoulders and twice in front of her. I was holding off on the order of when to strike, and once we reached the bridge, I signalled to go for it. This wasn’t a place where they could escape from us very easily, and I outnumbered them with my men. 

What followed next was the battle of Washington, which there at least has been made some statement about that it was directly involved with the events that later happened at the SHIELD headquarters and what happened at the Triskelion. This, unlike Fury’s car, they couldn’t deny, and had to outright say that it was part of it. I don’t think they could deny it even if they wanted to. They had done the stupid move of branding Steve Rogers as a fugitive, and tons of people wound up seeing him fight. 

I honestly don’t know how they didn’t see us coming, they must have been real focused on what Sitwell was saying or what they were talking about amongst one another. Because I had gone ahead and climbed on the roof of our own SUV while they sped up to right behind them. But no, they had no clue that we were on their tail until I jumped over onto their car, smashed my metal fist through the backseat passengers window, and tore out Sitwell and threw him onto the other end of the bridge in traffic. I threw him right in front of a truck, and that’s when they realised that they had been followed. 

With three remaining targets in the car, I knew approximately where to shoot in order to put an end to them. I honestly did hope that it would do enough with three bullets, and that the first one would be put in Natasha Romanoff, I knew most of her so I considered her to be the biggest risk. I had seen before I jumped over to their car that she had been sitting in the back. Unfortunately however, she had been prepared now when she knew that I was after them again. 

As a result, she somehow (I don’t know but I’ve stopped questioning it because the Red Room girls were all trained in ballet, and compared to me, she was small) jumped to the front seat and pulled Steve Rogers away from his seat so the bullet didn’t hit him. I could have shot him and killed him if it hadn’t been for Natasha. The third person in the car, Sam Wilson, now also had time to react and pulled away just in time. Three bullets, and not a single hit. 

Sam slammed down on the brakes and sent me flying (later I was told that it had been Steve who had put the car into parking). Which honestly, really did hurt. The serum just helps us heal, brings us on peak perfection and all that sort of shit, but shit still really fucking hurts when we get shot or get thrown of a car in high speed and get sent to roll on pavement. I could feel despite my protective gear, despite landing on my metal arm for the most of it, that my back scraped up. 

At this point I wasn’t very happy with them or with myself. At this point I was fucking angry for putting up so much trouble. I was angry with Pierce, because this was not what I was supposed to be used for. I was the New Fist of HYDRA, who worked from the dark and scared people into submission. I was not some fucking thug like Brock Rumlow that you sent away to cause a little bit of trouble. I wanted it over with. I wanted this mess over with, and I suppose that’s where I allowed myself to grow a little bit careless. 

With the help of my goons, they got the now parked car back moving again, bringing them to me rather than me going over to them. I jumped back up on the car, and sick of their little games and their fighting and their lack of accepting their imminent death, I slammed my metal fist through the front window of the car and just ripped the steering wheel out of Sam’s hand and he screamed like a small cat being cornered by a raccoon. I made my way back to our trucks, fully aware that they most likely had a weapon in the car and that they could easily put a bullet through my foot or through my leg or hand, something that I was absolutely not keen on having to deal with. I wasn’t about to stay on a car that they no longer could steer at a high speed either, because Sam had already started to drive away from us. 

We rammed into them, and the car flipped over. Was it enough? No, the fuckers had made it out of the car in time and were still perfectly fine. A little bit shaken, most likely have a severe case of whiplash come the evening and a bunch of sore muscles. But they were fine, like freaking cockroaches. Unkillable. 

The frustration was probably rather evident on my face, my goons handed me a grenade launcher to shoot out my frustration at them, and I did. I sent Steve flying over the bridge as he managed to push Natasha out of the way and pull up the flimsy looking shield of his, only it wasn’t that flimsy. It held the blast, barely took a scratch from it, and that was what sent Steve flying. Straight into a bus.

My next aim was Natasha, and after two grenades after her she was off the bridge and still very much alive. So I went with a regular gun instead, opting for a little bit of fine machinery and a more precise aim. At least the grenades had caused enough ruckus on the bridge for any newscasts to focus on that, and if I could steer and herd my mission away from it then perhaps I could still complete it with a level of discretion. 

When Natasha didn’t come out from under the bridge, I opted instead to blow up the bus that still very likely held Steve Rogers. I didn’t get to do that, because Natasha had stayed in the shadows and attempted to shoot me. She cracked my goggles, and at that point I was beyond just angry with these cockroaches, I was absolutely freaking livid with them. 

I just started shooting, angry with her for messing with my business, for not having taken the first bullet that was intended for her and for saving the others while she was at it. It was clear that she was to be the most annoying obstacle, so I told the goons that I was going to go after her. I jumped down the bridge, and I set chase for her, leaving HYDRA to deal with Steve Rogers. 

I will admit, I thought I had her, She tricked me, playing up a phone call on her cell and leaving it behind. When the car blew up I thought I had her, only to suddenly find myself in between her thighs. We fought for a bit, and she had an annoying little disk that she tossed at my metal arm that fried it, not entirely unlike the ones that HYDRA had used on me early on and she ran again, leaving me to reset my arm. It sounds a whole lot more complicated than it is, I just have to move it in a circle and it’s back to normal, even if I could still feel the jagged annoyance from the electricity. 

And then, then I realised she was running. Not just running to take a corner and make a new plan for herself. No, I realised that she was running away from me and for her life, and in that moment she dropped her guard just for a little bit, and I shot the very same red haired girl that I had trained in The Red Room, and I was pleased about it, because there she was, now stumbling and bleeding and the biggest pain in my ass so far for this mission was taken down. Not put down, just taken down. I was moments away from having one half of the mission completed. 

I had my finger on the trigger when the second annoyance reappeared and Steve Rogers came and did what he always does, which is save the day. Or at least try to save the day and while he’s at it, put his own life at risk. 

While it annoyed me then, now I look back on that little fight with a little bit of fondness if I’m going to be honest. That was the first fight in what I felt like had been decades, where I had as much fun as I did. I was finally fighting with someone who could keep up with me, and who could match my strength with my own. It’s a little bit like being the expert at something, and everything that you do is just too damn easy and then you finally find someone else at it that makes you break a sweat. 

That at least made me feel a little bit better at the frustration, and that I managed in the midst of the fight take his shield away from him. Steve himself told me that he was caught a little off guard by how I managed to match him just fine, and the sheer strength that i had. I wish that I had a picture somewhere of his face when I smashed the metal fist into the concrete below him and how it cracked. The shock that I had a limb that could do such a thing to something so solid. 

I’ve written it before, I know, but I was fucking proud. It’s fucked up that I took so much joy in fighting. But you have to think about it, it was the only thing that I was allowed to do, so naturally I was bound to latch onto it in any way that I could. It was that, and being put into a cryo that I wasn’t even sure I would ever wake up from. I didn’t have an identity beyond what they chose to give me and that was being an assassin, so I took the one and only thing that made me into  _ something _ rather than nothing, and I held that tightly to my chest. 

And I had him, I nearly had him. Steve will claim otherwise, but I know that I nearly had him. I would have had him if it wasn’t for the fact that Steve jammed the shield in my arm which made me freeze up for that millisecond, and he grabbed me and flipped me over. He pulled off my mask. 

I could see from the look on his face that something changed. What previously had been nothing but pure fight for his life was now confusion. He hesitated, and I suppose that was what made me halt, because I didn’t understand this new look on his face, and I wanted to know what I was going to deal with in response. Then Steve just spoke the word that sent everything crashing down, the one word that would put an end to Pierce’s plan, and everything that HYDRA had worked for in decades and that would loosen their grip over me.

Steve just said one simple thing. He said “ _ Bucky? _ ”

Because he recognized me, and I didn’t know who he was, I had no clue what he was talking about. It scared me a little. Because all of a sudden it went from me having the upper hand to Steve, and he hadn’t even done it in combat. He had knocked out my feet from underneath me in a way that I wasn’t trained for. I barely had the time to ask him who the hell Bucky was before Wilson kicked me away. When I was back on my feet again I felt a surge of panic, before deciding to rid myself of what had scared me in the first place. I aimed my gun and I nearly pulled the trigger. Natasha had gotten hold of the grenade launcher and aimed one at the car beside me. 

When the car was up in flames I did something that I had never once done as my time as The Winter Soldier. I just ran. 

 

\--

 

The thing about my memories is that I never truly lost them. HYDRA thought I did, the world thought I did, Steve thought I did. But they were always still there. They were never lost, they were just buried under rubble and then cemented over so I couldn’t access it, and over this road that they made, they built a house, and they filled that house with whatever they wanted me to know. 

Now, at the surface, something cemented over is rather easy to crack open to get to what’s hidden underneath. You’ll wind up making your fingers bleed before you get anywhere, and chances are you just give up. But sooner or later, there’ll be a pothole in the road. Sometimes they come and fix the pothole before you start digging around, sometimes you get going and start digging. Because that’s the little magic about tearing something down. 

When it’s immaculate, you can keep at it for hours and before you get any proper work done on it. Steve, created a little crack in all that HYDRA had cemented over with just his simple statement of  _ Bucky? _ That little crack was all I needed to begin tearing away, to get a few fingers in and beginning to tear away at what had been hidden from me. 

It wasn’t the first time that a mark spoke to me, in fact when they knew I was there, they did so quite frequently. They usually begged for their lives, they asked me what I wanted, they explained where what I wanted was, things along those lines, you know? You can probably imagine, so when Steve said  _ Bucky _ to me, that made me feel rather uncomfortable and even scared because this was a new thing and this wasn’t normal, this wasn’t how encounters were supposed to go. How on earth did he know me? Who the hell was this Bucky? 

It opened up the very real possibility that all I had ever known, was a lie. Was something so carefully constructed by HYDRA to keep me mellow and in their service. It made me realise that with a twist in my gut, that it was likely. Why wouldn’t it be? I helped them change the narrative all the damn time, didn’t I? Was it really so farfetched to think that they had changed  _ my  _ narrative? I had kidnapped people for them, had they kidnapped me from somewhere, and twisted what I was and used it for their own advantage?   
Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, and who  _ the fuck  _ was Bucky?

What’s probably the worst part after I ran from our Highway fight, was that I ran back to all I knew, which unfortunately was back to HYDRA. Where else was I supposed to go? I was so adapted to handling myself in all sorts of situations, I could have been fine if I had chosen not to go back to HYDRA. But I couldn’t help it, like many other things I did under the control of HYDRA, I couldn’t help it. 

Maybe it is a little bit odd to say, but when I was back in my chair, some scientist working on the arm that Steve had dented and surrounded by armoured men and their weapons, I felt a little bit better. This was familiar to me. This was what I knew. And this was a safe space to pry open those cracks and figure out what the hell that Steve had meant with Bucky. 

I retreated into myself when I did that, just ended up in my own head and kept thinking, so deep that I hadn’t even noticed a couple of times when they asked me questions. I’m not even sure that I gave them an answer. I think I may just have looked at them and then away again and went back into my head. 

Because the more I thought, the more one certain moment revolving around this Bucky started to break loose. I remembered, as far as I could call it remembering, it was just flashes, images, like flipping through a photo album really fast. You see all the images but you don’t see enough of them to make sense. You see Uncle Bob standing there holding a spatula but you don’t know which event it was that had him barbecuing, was it fourth of July? Was it Aunt Cathy’s birthday? Was it even barbecuing? Maybe he was indoors cooking. It’s a little like that. 

I had many small moments all interlinked together like that. But the strongest one, was actually seeing Steve in front of me, and we were on something moving fast, and it was cold. He was reaching for me, just as I was reaching for him. But we didn’t manage to do that in time, because I fell, whatever I was holding onto gave way and I fell. I replayed that a couple of times in my head, replayed how Steve’s face contorted with fear the moment that I started falling and I realised that we had known one another, that I had been someone worth saving in his mind. 

There were more images, I remembered falling after that, and I remembered hitting what felt like everything on my way down. I remembered being dragged through the snow and seeing the blood beside me and wondering what the fuck that was. Soldiers whose faces I didn’t know. I remembered Zola, even if I hadn't seen him in what felt like decades. I remembered seeing my arm for the first time, and I remembered trying to strangle someone because of it and how good it had felt at the time. 

I played those over and over in my head and then all of a sudden with a little sting, a little fuck up from the engineer beside me on my metal arm made me aware of him again just as I thought about strangling that man. I’m not sorry for what I did, but I smacked him across the room. For a moment I didn’t want anyone to touch me, I just wanted everything to make sense, and I didn’t want to feel the jab of electricity in my metal arm over and over while he fixed me. Which were a lot of demands that I made when I wasn’t in the position to bargain in the first place. 

On the bright side, that meant that they let me be for a little while and I could just think. Sure they had their guns aimed at me and were ready to take a shot at me, but there was nobody touching me, there was no one trying to patch me up and I had a peace of mind, sort of, when I tried to make sense of everything. At least until Pierce walked in. 

I didn’t even notice that he had done so, I didn’t even see him standing right in front of me, not until he slapped me to get me back to planet earth. It worked, to a certain extent. My thoughts were still on Steve and Bucky and who the hell Bucky had been and if I was that Bucky, and if I had  _ known _ Steve. Which I couldn’t even fathom myself, because all my life had been HYDRA. When the hell had I known someone who cared enough about me to want to rescue me? 

So I asked Pierce who he was. I could tell by the look that he didn’t like that I had asked a question in the first place. He gave an answer that I already knew, though, I knew that Steve was the man who owned the place where I had shot Fury, the shield had been the same and I wasn't an idiot. I knew that he was evading my question as well as I he could. His expression changed when I told Pierce that I had known Steve. I could feel how the tension in the air grew thick. I could feel how they all got nervous and kept their eyes fixed on me, wondering what I was about to say. For as far as I know myself and now, remember, I hadn’t said that once in my time with them. Not once had I doubted everything that they had told me, and here I was, starting to make statements that they didn’t like. Starting to doubt the message they had stamped in my head. 

Pierce did what he did best, and this he actually did the best out of all my handlers. He might not have been good at using me in practice, may have had the wrong priorities when it came to selecting missions for me. But Pierce had a way with words and he knew exactly what to say to sate me and make me calm and compliant again. It’s almost as if he knew that I prided myself on certain aspects of my skills, as if he knew that it was the only thing I was holding on to. 

He praised me, told me that I had shaped the century for them and that I had been such a tremendous help at creating the vision that HYDRA had strived for during all these years. The only ever praise that I had gotten over the course of decades, so of course I listened. Like a beaten dog I listened and I nodded, just that little bit because I had been used to create good in the world. Pierce needed me to do it one more time. 

It wasn’t like I had much choice about the matter. I didn’t want to, I felt terrified all of a sudden, there were so many things that I wondered and wanted to crawl into a hole and figure out this gigantic question mark that had been planted in my head. I almost felt like I was about to begin sobbing, still shaken from the realisation that there might be so much more going on that I didn’t know. That they had hidden away from me. But I agreed, because I knew that I wouldn’t be given a choice. Pierce had phrased it like a question, but it had the air about it like a parent asking a child to take out the trash. It’s not really a question, it’s a demand. Only I faced so much more than just being grounded if I protested. There were twelve guns fixed on me, safeties off and ready to put a bullet in my head if I didn’t. Through it all, I still didn't want to die. I still wanted to live. Doesn’t everyone want to live? 

Pierce was talking about how he couldn’t create HYDRA’s perfect vision for mankind if I didn’t do my part in it, all in order to make me go willingly. I think it’s one of the few times where I talked back. Of a sorts. Because all I could say in response to the little speech that he had ordained for me, was a repetition of the words I had already given Pierce before. 

_ But I knew him. _

 

I talked back, it might seem mild when you read about it like this. But let me assure you, it wasn’t mild. Pierce took one look at me, and then decided to send me out on the mission anyhow. A scientist advised against it, saying I had been up too long, that I should be put back under, it would set me somewhat straight again. It would make me forget about this whole ordeal with a long sleep, and I’d be wiped when I’d wake up. But he didn’t want to listen. So he just told them to wipe me, and to prep me. 

I would have burst into tears right then and there if I had known how to. Instead they just pushed me back into my chair. Gave me a piece of rubber so I wouldn’t break my teeth, and they fried my brain and covered up the crack that Steve had made in my head. 

And I let them. 

 

\--

 

They had hit my reset button. 

I didn’t remember much of my encounter with Steve on the highway, but enough to know what I was up against. This time I had prepped properly. I was prepared for a flying bastard in the sky. I was prepared for Natasha Romanoff, and I was prepared for a blonde guy with military expertise and a shield. 

Pierce brought me straight to the SHIELD headquarters because that’s what they’d be tackling. Sure enough, it didn’t take them that long to infest the headquarters, took maybe a day or two, I’m not entirely sure on how long it was. But I know that they set me loose when shit was already starting to go down. Steve and Sam were well on their way at disabling the helicarriers and some parts of SHIELD’s staff had started to disobey orders and help them out. 

Which is one of the first things I put a stop to. I fired grenades at plenty of quinjets, injured and killed a lot of pilots so they wouldn’t have any air support and allowing Project Insight an advantage. I wouldn’t do much good from the ground, though, so I took one of the quinjets and flew myself up to one of the helicarriers that I knew they hadn’t reached yet. 

Now, I didn’t remember much from what Steve had said, I had pretty much forgotten the whole  _ Bucky _ debacle, but I did remember on how pissed I had been at them for fucking up my mission. I was given a rare, second opportunity and if I didn’t get this one right I would be dead. I was not going to be murdered because of those jackasses.  

The best way to do that, in my humble opinion, was to just knock them off the Helicarrier when we were up that high. I tackled Steve off it, or at least what I believed to be off, and I tore of one of Sam’s wings before kicking him off as well. Figuring that the high altitude we found ourselves at would do the job when they either collided with the landing site at SHIELD or the water of the Potomac. I didn’t really care what they got smashed upon, as long as it was something. 

Unfortunately, when I looked down to see Sam falling down, I also spotted Steve, the bastard, still clinging on to the Helicarrier and working his way inside of it. That meant that my job still wasn’t done. Now the focus shifted more from killing them to keeping Project Insight from launching in the first place. 

I knew the Helicarriers, had been given a chance to study them and to walk through one, so I made it to the system override before Steve did. Prepared to give my life for it although preferably, I would have enjoyed to keep it. 

Steve pleaded with me in one last attempt. He told me that people would die because of Project Insight. I found that oddly naive. People always died, especially when I was involved, why would today be any different? The Project had to go live. That was the task. There was no other way about it. Who did he think he was, that he could stop that? 

Project Insight was to make the world a better place, it would remove all the threats. It would remove the people prone to commit crime and revolt. It would remove those who kept the world from having world peace. Project Insight was a good thing. Project Insight did exactly what I did, only at a much larger scale. I had always worked for the greater good, hadn’t I?

I could tell the exact split second he decided to fight me. He almost looked torn before he did, as if all he really wanted was to walk away in that moment. But he decided against it and came at me. 

That fight wasn’t anything like the one we had on the highway. Now we both had a taste of how the other would fight. Steve was prepared against my arm, and my guns and my knives. Just as much as I was prepared for  that shield of his and the way he bounced it around in combat. It doesn’t look like much, but if Steve slams you with it, it does send you flying. 

For a moment, he actually had the upper hand, he worked his way past me, and by keeping me away he was able to tap in a code to open the override, and also take out one of the chips. Which meant that I was running out of time. I tackled him over the railing to get him away from the override, as a result Steve dropped both his chip and his shield, which made the fight a little bit more even matched, in my opinion. 

Steve picked up the chip-- I slammed it out of his hand again and sent it down another level. Then he proceeded to knock me out before going down with me to go and get it. My focus wasn’t on the chip at that moment, I was seeing stars and suddenly not enjoying that I was fighting someone who was as evenly matched as me. It wasn’t fun anymore. It was nothing else but a hassle and a pain, because it hurt, everything still hurt. My head was pounding still from the reset that HYDRA had put me through and having been awake for days on end at that point. I can’t go on forever, even I needed to rest at that time when I had been taking beatings. So I grew sloppy and filled with anger. 

I started coming at Steve with everything I had, I tossed him his shield in the middle of his back in the hope of breaking something. I tried to shoot him, I stabbed him in the shoulder. He headbutted me a couple of times which did absolutely nothing good for my headache. I grabbed the chip with the hope that I could destroy it, but he was at me again, picking me up and slamming me down and then putting right arm, the one with flesh and bone in an armlock in the hope of making me drop it. 

I didn’t drop it, so Steve dislocated my elbow. I still didn't drop it. Which I have to admit even today, I am a little bit proud of. So he took the next best step and that was to strangle me until I passed out. Just to give you an idea of how strong Steve is when he did this, I tried to fight it with my metal arm, but somehow he managed to pull it down and lock it in place with his thigh, it wouldn’t budge. Eventually, things went dark, I passed out, and I dropped Steve’s chip. 

I came to not that long after. You don’t really stay passed out that long if someone cuts of your air supply, a minute at most, and I ran faster on all those sorts of things than most people. So before half a minute I was already coming back, head pounding and disoriented, but I was there. Steve was making himself an easy target while climbing back up to the system override.

I shot him a couple of times, and one proper shot to his back just before he was going to implement his chip. He did it though, just as I was climbing my way up to him to ensure that he wouldn’t, and then it felt like all hell broke loose. Which essentially, it did, the other helicarriers started to shoot at one another, which included us. I never made it back up to the system override, a pillar came tearing down and took me down with it, pinning me underneath it. I could easily have been crushed, and I felt something break, a rib or something, but with the luck of the interior of the helicarrier it only was real heavy. 

We were in the last one still in the air. The other two crashed into one another before they dropped. So we weren’t taking anymore fire, if you’ve got to find the bright side in something. But we were still going down, and I was now stuck under more rubble as the interior went to hell. And all I kept thinking in an odd sense of panic was that I was going to die. This was where Steve Rogers would make his escape and I would go down with the ship. I’d either get something slammed against my head, or I’d drown in the river beneath us. I tried, I really did try to make it out from under it. For no other reason than my own self preservation. I had failed my very first mission, and I saw no reason why HYDRA would want to keep me around after this. I wouldn’t have kept myself around after that, if there even was a HYDRA left. I guess you can say for the first time in decades, I was fighting for my own life. 

But Steve, even after being shot by me several times, even after all the pain I had put him through, still tried to do the right thing and save me. He tried to lift the pillar that had fallen across me, and that little bit was all that I needed in order to crawl out from under it. You’d think that’d be enough, and for any other reasonable person that would have been enough. Steve, however, suffers from dumbass disease and didn’t think it was enough. 

Don’t take me wrong, I am now, in hindsight, very grateful over what he did. I’m extremely grateful that he persisted and told me once more that I knew him. Scaring the wits out of me, because I knew, I just knew somewhere inside of me that he was right. I recognized him, like he was a figure of a board game, but I didn’t have the game itself to it anymore. 

_ You’ve known me your whole life. _

That’s what Steve told me, and I was furious with him. Furious with the world because there was more to it than what I had thought. Furious with HYDRA, for having covered up all of this from me. Furious with Steve, for putting a stop to my mission, rendering me worthless and something to be discarded. 

Steve had the gall to tell me my name, to remind me that my name was James Buchanan Barnes. This whole other person that I didn’t know, and that was supposed to be me. There’s nothing more alienating in the world than finding out you’re supposed to be someone else. I was supposed to be this James Buchanan Barnes, and Steve wasn’t going to fight me, because we were supposed to be friends. 

I was absolutely terrified of what he was telling me, because to me it felt like he was tearing away the one and only thing that was certain to me. The one and only thing that was solid. Steve Rogers was my mission, he had put a stop to that so I couldn’t complete it, even if I eliminated him there would be a shitshow following the failure of Project Insight. He had no right, no right to take that away from me and turn himself into something else for me. He had no right to make himself my friend. 

The worst part of all was Steve told me to finish the mission as I was beating him, trying to reclaim what little control I had by making Steve my mission. Telling him that was all he was. I couldn’t. I had my fist raised and I stared down at him, and I couldn’t. There was some sort of block and I couldn’t think. Because I knew him, and here I was, just being scared of the fact that he knew more about me than I did. But I had known him. I know I once had, and I know he had tried to save me and I know that I had fallen before that happened and I just… couldn’t. 

Then the glass broke underneath us. Steve fell, and I watched him fall for a moment before I let go and started to fall myself. 

 

~~*~~

 

“Okay first things first, I did not scream like a small cat being cornered by a raccoon. I recall very vividly that I shouted _ Holy Shi _ t, alright, you need to change that. Inaccurate, totally inaccurate. You’re incredible,” Sam muttered without even looking up from the chapter. He was at their dining table, a bottle of beer in front of him and the bowl which previously had been filled with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce was now empty. 

As he kept flipping back and forth in the pages, he missed Bucky’s wink to Steve, telling him in a silent conversation that he was fully aware Sam had cursed, but had written in the scream just to annoy him. Steve snorted and rolled his eyes. 

“Secondly.” Sam put the chapter down on the table, tapped it with his index finger and looked at Bucky. “This is good, I think this is going to do some real good for you, some peace of mind up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Looking at things so objectively and from a distance. Twisting it in a different way.” 

“Oh here he goes, here comes the therapy speech,” Bucky teased and rolled his eyes. Steve broke out in a fit of giggles. Sam didn’t take the bait that had been laid out for him and instead kept looking at Bucky, deadly serious. 

“I’m happy you’re writing it, for your own sake.” Sam finished with an odd sort of smile that Bucky after all these years still couldn’t place. He was never entirely sure if Sam was just being genuine with him, or if he was fucking with him. Steve always told him that Sam was genuine, but he just couldn’t place what part of the expression that made it so genuine. So in the end he just opted to believe Steve. 

“He’s been having a bit of trouble with it lately though, haven’t you?” Steve reached out over the table and squeezed Bucky’s arm. “Had some hard stuff to write about.” 

“I bet, this chapter alone is pretty heavy.” Sam leaned in over the table and looked at the top page again. “You’re strong, Barnes, and this is going to be the one and only time where I tell you so, so remember that.” Bucky chuckled. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to tell the rest of a world that you truly lack a heart,” Bucky teased, placed his hand on his chest and then got up from the table. Sam pointed at him. 

“That’s the Bucky I know,” Sam said with a chuckle, then stood up to help him clear the table from their ice cream bowls. Steve took the chance to escape, and went to let the dogs out who had both laid down in front of the glass door. 

“I mean it though,” Sam said as soon as he was in the kitchen with Bucky, holding his own ice cream bowl and the bottle of caramel sauce. “I think it’s a good thing, what you’re writing. I think it’ll help you a lot.”

“It’s funny,” Bucky said and held his fingers under the tap water, waiting for it to turn warm before he rinsed the pot off. “It didn’t start out like that, at first I just wanted to get facts straight. I guess I still am. It’s just more than that now.” 

“Getting facts straight my ass, you need to change out my scream, I swear to god,” Sam muttered out under his breath, making Bucky break out in laughter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, The Life & Death of Bucky Barnes will be posted on Wednesday's instead of Friday's, as on Friday's I'll be posting a different fic instead.


	12. Rebirth

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Steve said, laying sprawled out in their lawn chairs with an arm behind his back. He was wearing sunglasses and started to go a little bit red on the tip of his nose. Bucky glanced at the pool, which contained Sam playing fetch with Winnie. Roxy was just sitting content on one of the steps in the water, watching the pair. 

“Been hurting your brain?” Bucky teased Steve with a smirk before sinking down further in his own lawn chair and closed his own eyes. The sun had a steady, wonderfully warming burn on his skin and he was planning on soaking as much of it up as he possibly could. He wanted to carry the warmth with him into the bedroom that evening. Steve had put on the fan the previous night, and as a result he had been cold. 

“Ass,” Steve said, smacking Bucky on his arm. Bucky snickered. “I was thinking, considering you’ve had a hard time writing lately and all, ‘cause of what you been writing. You’re… crankier.” Bucky didn’t have to look over to Steve to feel his gaze on him. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, I don’t. I get it, it’s not easy. But, maybe you should talk to Namazzi about it?”

Bucky sighed and shifted again in his chair. He pushed his sunglasses further up his nose and put his arm behind his head as a pillow of sorts. He had taken off the metal arm before coming outside, not wanting it to heat up in the sun as he tanned and then accidently brand himself or Steve with it. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

“You’ve got stuff to work through, you’re writing about things you haven’t even spoken about with her. I know you well enough to know that there’s still things you haven’t touched on with her. Don’t deny it,” Steve carried on, and Bucky bit down on the inside of his cheek. Of course Steve was right, and of course, he wouldn’t be able to deny it. He had only spoken with Namazzi about half of what he had been writing. 

“I’m not saying you should just hand over everything you’ve written about to her, have her read it and then work it through chapter by chapter. That’s not what I’m saying, hell, I’m not even talking about talking about the book with her. Just, maybe how you’ve been dealing with writing it?” Steve continued, he sounded so hopeful that it made Bucky realise how much he had been worrying Steve the past few months. And ever patient, Steve had been putting up with him over the past few months. The dreams, the crying fits, the endless torment of questions, and then eventually, the six month halt because he hadn’t been willing to face what he had written about. It hadn’t been rough just on Bucky. It had been just as rough on Steve. Yet Steve had pushed him to continue.

Bucky removed his arm from behind his head and reached out to Steve. Not long after he felt Steve’s fingers tangle themselves in his. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess,” Bucky said on a low whisper, ignoring the loud splash in the pool followed by Sam’s curses. “I’ll think about it, and  go to see her. I promise.” Bucky turned to face Steve and gave him a soft smile. Steve’s face lit up. There was a sudden splash from the pool, followed by a loud fit of curses. 

“Rogers, come get your fucking dog!” Sam called out from the pool. Steve burst out laughing.

 

~~*~~

 

**Chapter 12 - Rebirth**

 

In a way, it’s not that surprising that I pulled Steve out of the Potomac. Even if I wasn’t sure at the time why I was doing what I did. It was one of the few decisions I made for myself. If you ignore all the choices I made of how the mission would go through, anyway. But I went after Steve in the water and dove down, got a hold of him and swam us both to the shore. 

That alone is a miracle in it’s own. My right arm was still dislocated, so I had to pull Steve in with only one functioning arm and keep us both afloat at the same time. For a moment, I just watched the third and last Helicarrier come crashing down. Then I looked at Steve, half drowned, shot in multiple places by me. Not only had he also taken a serious impact when he hit the water from a height high enough to make it feel like he would be falling down on a paved road. 

By all means he should be dead, and a panic rose in me, because I knew that we had been friends, even if I couldn’t remember anything of it. He was one of the few people alive, if not the only one, who could tell me honestly and truthfully who I was. If Steve died, I risked losing so much of that knowledge. 

Steve took a breath -- he was still alive. Something set me at ease. When he took that breath it felt like I could breathe again myself, but I couldn’t stay with him. I didn’t  _ want  _ to stay with him, either. Steve knew who I was, and he would almost certainly be willing to help me with that, but this was something that I needed to discover myself. I had been lied to for so long that I wanted to find something out for myself rather than be told. I would go to Steve when I was ready for it. So I left him laying there at the bank, certain that he would be found. 

If he was anything like I was, he wouldn’t die. He’d still be a beat-up mess by the time that anybody found him, but he wouldn’t die. He was breathing.

I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I still worked on a deeply ingrained instinct and protocol. So despite everything, despite deciding that I would be figuring out who I was. I went back to HYDRA. First without knowing why, and then because I decided I’d grab weapons. I would murder the scientists left there for what they had done to me and what they had made me forget. Then I would search out a safehouse. With the way that HYDRA had gone up in flames in front of me at the SHIELD headquarters, I figured that it would take some time for anyone to even find the safehouses. The sleeper agents wouldn’t all run, not at the same time. That would be plain stupidity. They’d be trying to cover their tracks. So I figured I would be safe. I could allow myself a couple of days to recover, to heal. Heal the scrapes and bruises, give my ribs a bit of rest so I could take a breath without feeling a sharp stab. Get my right arm back to somewhat functionality. Then I would decide what I’d do. 

When I reached the bank however, I couldn’t kill the scientists. I wanted to do nothing else but plant bullets in between their eyes, sink my knife in between their ribs and make them feel the same amount of suffering as I had done over decades at their hands. When faced with the decision to do so, however, I just couldn’t for reasons that I couldn’t explain and it infuriated me. 

At least my presence around them had freaked them out well enough, especially after I had knocked a couple of them out, to just give me what I wanted and let me go. They knew better than to try and stop me by themselves. That would just put themselves at risk and they wanted to walk free, they wanted a chance to work towards their own escape and cover their own tracks. 

Oddly enough, I found myself thinking that perhaps it wasn’t worth to murder them either. That was what they had made me do all those years without taking into account what I wanted and felt about it. It felt wrong to make one of my first choices that I was in charge off to be about murder. So I grabbed a bag, made them fill it while I held them at gunpoint, and then I ran again. 

I didn’t have much on me, mostly it was ammunition and weapons and a little bit of cash. I had torn off the SHIELD jacket from one of the guards, which at a distance looked like any other jacket.  Made one scientist approximately my size strip out of his jeans. I took keys to one of the cars, just a regular BMW, and I left the scientists there. Figuring that now would not be the time for them to track me, I thought I had some time. So I drove the BMW to under a bridge and left it there. Changed pants as well. I got on the bus going back to where I had come from and got a ticket, following it for a couple of stops before getting off again. 

I walked through the city for the better part of two hours, and nobody really paid attention to me in this era of cellphones and following everything live. They were watching what had happened over the Triskelion on their phones and didn’t even notice I was in between them. When my arm started to hurt too much, I took a turn into a parking lot and broke into a car (neatly, mind you, there was no glass, the arm has a lot of tricks) and set out on the road again in a regular Honda Civic. 

I drove to what I knew was a safe house and abandoned the car two miles up the road. There was no need to worry about fingerprints or anything. If they found a strand of my hair it’d be useless, because they still needed to match it to me and there was no way I was planning on letting myself getting caught. And fingerprints? My right arm was useless for driving and I still hadn’t gotten a chance to properly set it, the metal arm didn’t have any prints to leave. 

By the time that I reached the safe house and was inside, I just sank to the floor with my heart hammering away in my chest. I couldn’t really explain why I had gone through such caution in getting away. I was sure HYDRA wouldn’t come, not yet, and even so they would have been able to track me with the trackers that they had dug into my clothes and my body. I was taking precaution from regular law enforcement, which I could take easily myself. 

But some part of me knew that I wasn’t thinking straight, I was freezing, I was tired and my head was hurting. My entire body was aching and my arm had swollen up to twice the size that it really should be. I needed to rest, and not until I had slept would I be able to figure out the proper next steps. 

I set my arm again, which was almost as excruciating as it had been to have it dislocated in the first place, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent about ten minutes just rolling around on the floor from pain. When that started to ease, bit by bit and I was regaining movement in my fingertips, I forced myself up again. 

I showered, water warm enough to scald my skin and burn me. I took a knife and I dug the trackers out from the palm of my hand, and my thigh. Pinched my fingers a couple of times and got the tracker out of my metal arm. I flushed those, along with the trackers that I tore out of my uniform and out of my boot. I cleaned the uniform up, tossed it in the laundry while I sat in the kitchen and warmed up a tin of ravioli to eat. I waited, tossed the uniform in the dryer, and waited again. Once it was dry, I dressed in it again, picked a safe spot in the safe house and slept, using the bag as a pillow and ready to go should someone burst down the door. 

 

\--

 

Nobody burst down the door. I stayed in the house for about a week before I dared go outside. I had been watching the news and following the situation. The stations claimed that HYDRA was dead, once and for all. I didn’t believe that, no matter how much rubble they were in. If you cut the head off the HYDRA, two more will grow in it’s place. The only thing to take into account was that the heads needed time to grow. But soon enough, at some point in life HYDRA will rise out of the ashes. Call me paranoid if you wish, I don’t care. 

It was the news roll of Steve Rogers being allowed home from the hospital about a week in that set me outside again. He had been my friend, I had to remind myself, and I wasn’t going to figure out who I was by just sitting around, which was something I was very good at. I was so used to be told what to do by others when I was in a standstill that I had just sat around all days. I hadn’t done anything besides eat and sleep. I had just been waiting on orders that I wouldn’t receive. It’s incredibly hard to take initiative when you’ve had that taken away from yourself. 

But seeing Steve spurred me back into action. I googled him for a little bit and found a bunch of articles; what must be the longest wikipedia article in human history and more than enough information on him and the Avengers. I read through everything, Diligently so. I had taken a notebook from around the safe house and started to make notes. Then I found out about the exhibition that they had going on in the Smithsonian. I decided to go. The internet helped, the internet helped a lot. But it’s something different from reading about it and to see something in front of you. 

It was different, wandering around in the museum. My disguise worked well enough, and for those of you wondering how I made it through the security checkpoint with a metal arm because I know some of you are, there’s a setting on the arm that makes it undetected. I was wearing long sleeves, and there’s no must to take off your gloves. That’s how I made it through. 

I was perhaps the most interested attendee that day. I read through everything that I could find, several times. I watched every film roll that they offered and did so back to back three times to watch these faces. People that I didn’t know talking on about Steve and trying to wrap my head around the fact that we had been friends. 

It must have been during the second world war, I realised, because I had been awake in moments from the sixties and onwards. He had never been there, not once. I didn’t remember anything any earlier than that, and I learned that Steve had crashed the Valkyrie into ice and water in ‘45, so that didn’t leave a whole lot of options, really. 

I was a little amused when I saw that the exhibit because his uniform was temporarily unavailable, and I think I snickered a little bit when I realized that it would be unavailable forever after that. It had been the one that Steve had been wearing, I hadn’t paid attention to the difference when we fought one another. But now it was riddled with bullet holes and a couple of bloodstains that would be hard to wash out. 

Then, I found myself. Literally, not figuratively. For those of you who have never been there, there’s a wall with a section on each and every single one of the Howling Commandos, and I just plain and simply found myself standing in front of mine. 

For a moment, all I could do was stare at it, stare at the picture that was printed into the glass. I came to a eerie realisation that the man on the picture was indeed me. Just more clean shaven, less muscular and with short hair, but it was me alright. It was like looking into a mirror. Those two paragraphs that they had written on me were the first few things that I learned again about myself, and pretty much the only thing that I got to learn about myself  during that trip. 

It spoke of sisters that I never had, it spoke of me enlisting (major thing to get wrong, I guess if you lie enough about it eventually the lie becomes the truth) and it spoke of me being captured by HYDRA, only to be freed by Steve, and then for me to die as we had fought together. It spoke of Steve and I being friends since childhood. 

You ever have had that sensation where the ground seems to disappear beneath your feet, but for some reason you’re still standing? I had that, I was rooted to the spot for at least two hours, just staring at it. The security must have thought I was pretty weird. In the end I had to move, they were closing the exhibition and I had been there since first thing in the morning. I wanted to stop by the gift shop before leaving. The exhibit wouldn’t go anywhere, I told myself. There would be chances for me to come back. And I did. 

In the gift shop I bought myself two books. One on Captain America and one on the Howling Commandos, figuring that it would be the best combination for me to learn as much about myself as I could. If we truly had been friends since childhood, then there should be plenty of mentions of me in both. In the Howling Commandos book I hoped to at least get some information on me as a separate entity from Steve. As a separate person. 

When I made it back to the safe house that evening, I made myself something to eat and I started to read the books. I didn’t get up from my chair until I had finished reading the Captain America book, five hundred pages thick with pictures. It took me about thirty hours. I went to sleep. And when I woke up I sat myself down and opened the book on the Howling Commandos and I read that one through in one sitting as well. That one, I finished in fourteen hours. It was shorter, and had way more pictures than the other one. 

Through it all I hoped for something familiar, a flash of something, anything that would tell me yes, I had been there, I had lived through that and I had remembered that. All in all, I read about eight hundred pages, and the only thing that seemed somewhat familiar was falling off the damn train. 

 

\--

 

It was clear that while books would help, figuring out things on my own would take a long time. I was impatient. I want to say that I had a basis of knowledge by then, it certainly felt like I did, but it was only facts and nothing that had spawned from myself. Remember when I was talking about potholes and breaking them open? Well, I still only had a crack in my road, and my fingers were bleeding already and I hadn’t gotten any further. 

So I thought of Steve. Steve who knew and who had helped with his own exhibition (also a reason why my wall said I enlisted, it was the lie I had told Steve and that he seemingly had believed) and clearly had his own facts straight. He had been my friend, who hadn’t wanted to fight me in the first place. There was a chance I believed, that he would be willing to help me figure out more about myself, and then I’d have someone else clawing at the cracks of that road, and let me keep whatever treasures we found underneath without raising a fuss. 

I couldn’t just go over there, however. Firstly because I was cowardly, I’ll admit to this. I was still clinging to the whole, I’ll figure it out myself spirit for a bit. But Steve kept snaking his way back in my head. It’s a little bit odd to explain, but for a while it felt like he belonged at my side, even if I hardly knew him. Then there was the hesitation that followed how I would approach him in the first place. 

It wasn’t exactly as if I could go up to his door and knock on it, ask to be let in for a drink while we had a quiet little talk about what we were once upon a time. It wasn’t that simple, and could be he was furious with me for having left him, for having shot him multiple times. Friendships strained over time with what you put other people through. I may not have had any friends myself besides the dogs which I played fetch with, but I had been sent out myself on multiple times by handlers who felt they had been betrayed by their friends, and who drunk on power, decided that those friends shouldn’t get to live anymore. 

Maybe, just maybe, Steve thought I was beyond redemption after what we had gone through on the helicarrier and he wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe he felt so betrayed that he just wanted to cut me out of his life, maybe he just had decided he had a more peaceful time without me. and I understood all of that. I even respected it, because I still didn’t quite see myself as a person but more of a thing. 

So I figured, why not use that as an advantage? Steve would obviously be the one more bothered by my presence than I would be of his, so I could force myself upon him, ask what I really needed to know and then leave, if he wanted me gone. If he didn’t, then I would stay and keep asking. 

It took a little bit of preparation. Steve would be on guard, I imagined, and there would probably be others guarding the place unless he told them off. He wasn’t just a national hero, he was a damn national icon, a living, breathing, moving monument who just had saved the world again and this time, it was from something a little bit more intimidating than aliens falling from the sky. Well, at least if you ask me, aliens you can still shoot at. Parasites that infest what’s supposed to be good in the world, are by far harder to burn out. 

For a couple of nights straight, I just kept an eye on the place. I would don my HYDRA uniform, don the war paint and I would just wait and watch. Try to figure out what routine Rogers stuck by. I was certain he would have one, anyone who’s ever been in the military has a routine, even if they’re not willing to admit it. Sure enough, Steve had one. 

He didn’t go out much, and was still on some level of bedrest I imagined. He walked with a limp around the house from where I had shot him in his thigh, and only wore t-shirts and sweats. He spent most of his time on the couch, watching television which I could tell disturbed him, having to lay still like that and not do anything. But yet, every morning he got up at the same time and he went to bed the same time. He ate dinner on the clock and he showered on the clock as well. Religiously dressed his wounds at the same time. Steve did everything that he was supposed to do, and then spent the rest of the hour waiting until he got to do the next thing. 

Save for one evening, when Birdman Sam Wilson came by and the two ate dinner together in Steve’s kitchen at an off hour. Steve seemed to be a bit cheered up by the company, and then sulked right back down to his miserable self when Sam left him alone. Returned to the couch and stared at the television without really watching it. 

I did this for five days, just keeping an eye on him and figuring out my approach. I decided against going in broad daylight, and would go in the cover of dark. I already knew five different places of where to break into Rogers apartment, so getting in and out wouldn’t be that much work. I could escape whenever I wanted to, and unlike Steve, I wasn’t walking around with a limp or hadn’t been shot, escaping him if all went to hell wouldn’t be that hard. He was practically a crippled if you asked me then.

I figured that way would give me the safest option of going in, having a look around, and if I didn’t like it, I could just turn around and leave. Steve would never even know I had been there. 

So roughly two weeks after the entire shitstorm that would later be called HYDRA Uprising, I broke into Steve’s apartment in the middle of the night. 

I could have looked around at all his things, I could have picked up the shield and taken a proper look. Look over his pictures, his books, the things he had framed and generally try to figure out what sort of person he was from that alone. That had been my initial plan, to judge who and how he was and then decide if I would face him or not. In the end, I found that I couldn’t, it somehow felt like I was breaking and entering and looking in someone’s most private thoughts and that rubbed me wrong. So I did none of those things, but I still wanted answers. 

I went to the room with the least personality, and sat down in the kitchen in one of the “dead” corners, so no one from outside would be able to see that I was there. And I waited. I had broken in at about three in the morning, and I knew from having been observing Steve for the past few days that he usually got up at eight before taking a trip to the bathroom, and then limp into the kitchen for coffee. It was only five hours, I could wait patiently until then. Five hours was pretty much nothing. 

Five hours would give me plenty of time to figure out what I wanted to ask of him. What I wanted to know and what I wanted to discover about myself if Steve was willing to give the answers. I felt oddly calm as I waited. 

Sure enough, a little before eight in the morning I heard movement in the bedroom, came to learn that he woke up around that time because of an alarm clock, and listened as Steve shuffled into the bathroom. I waited still, thinking over and over where I had the two guns that I had brought with me had been strapped, where I kept every single knife. 

It’s hard trying to judge how a situation like that is going to go. I expected some form of extremity, people mostly did react like that to me unless they handled me. And the extremity was usually based on fear, so there was a fleeting feeling of being out of my depth there. Not to mention I was an intruder. Something that he without a doubt wouldn’t take kindly to.

Steve started making his way to the kitchen. I started tensing up, being ready for fight or flight and having to react quickly. 

Steve didn’t notice me at first. He walked into the kitchen and then just looked at me. I could almost tell how he had to take a double take at me to make sure that he wasn’t imagining things. That he really was seeing me sitting in the middle of his kitchen. All donned up in a uniform, the very same I had worn when we had been fighting. Complete without the mask and everything. And he just… couldn’t believe that I was there. But it sank in, it took a second, two, three, and then he muttered out my name, not as a statement, but as a question. As if to make sure that it really was me, but there was also caution to the question, as if he wanted to make sure what form of me he was dealing with. The aggressive soldier he had met on the bridge that had torn a steering wheel out of the car and that had been intent on murdering him and his friends. Or the other soldier that he met on the Helicarrier, the one that hesitated moments before we fell, the one that had the chance to kill him but didn’t take it. 

I think I gave him an answer to his question, in my odd little way. I just told him  _ that’s his name, not mine.  _ It didn’t feel like mine, and I didn’t want to wear the name of a man that looked so much like me, that must have been me in another life. But that was just it, Bucky Barnes had been in another life, and I didn’t feel like him, so I didn’t want to wear his name. That felt like stealing. 

Steve accepted my presence in his kitchen.  For a couple of moments we just talked to one another. Brushed over some topics of the past events, but stayed, for the most part, away from them. Leaving them hidden away in a box that neither of us were ready to open yet. Steve tried to convince me that what HYDRA had done to me was wrong, tried to tell me that they shouldn’t have done anything of the like. 

I still found myself protecting them. I was still clinging to the whole idea that HYDRA had looked after me, they had given me a purpose, which I needed to stress to Steve the importance of it. I’m not sure if he understood why I did that, or if he just was worried that I had enjoyed what they made me do. I don’t think he understood that I was holding on to the one reason of my existence, my pride in being the best. My pride at the knowledge that I had shaped the world for the better. 

It was only terrifying when he opened up the prospect that what there were two sides to one coin. And that the other might be the good side, the right side, and that I had fought against that for years. It was already a sort of identity crisis when I had read through the books I had bought at the museum. But books didn't talk back in the same way. I knew I had the power to shut them and ignore them forever if I wanted to. Steve, he didn’t work like that. 

After a while, we finally ended up on the topic of what I remembered. I didn’t tell Steve much of that, partially because there was little to tell. And partially because I wanted to keep what little I knew to myself until I felt confident about it. But Steve agreed to help me, he seemed excited at the prospect even. Almost as if that was a guarantee that he would get his friend back. He offered to let me stay. 

I figured why not? I couldn’t stay in the safe house forever, I would have to move eventually, and if Steve was willing to help me try to remember everything then it would be handy if I had him just down the hall. He let me shower, he gave me fresh, warm clothes and he set up the guest bedroom for me, after a minor miscommunication that we had where he kept asking me what I wanted, which was something I couldn’t handle. 

For as far as I was concerned, Steve had made himself my handler by letting me stay with him, by helping me. He was in charge of me and the idea that he let me make my own choices about some things drove me a little bit insane, it annoyed me that he didn’t seem to get it when I explained it to him over and over. 

Eventually, we found a loophole, where he “gave” me a mission to look after myself. That allowed me to walk around and feed myself, shower, go to bed when I felt tired or if I got a headache. Steve ordered food, a mixture of Chinese and Pizza, with a bunch of options for us to choose from in the hope that it would make me feel more comfortable with making decisions for myself. It was an easy choice for me to make, I picked the one that I recognized and had eaten, which was Chinese. 

I was pretty annoyed when the carton to the Chinese translated to something entirely different than the English text on it implied. I ate. And then I went to bed, my head was hurting from all the talking and questions and frankly, from being in an entirely new situation that I didn’t know how to deal with. I tried to sleep in the guest bed, found it too soft and made myself a nest on the floor, hidden away in a corner, and I slept. 

 

\--

 

Steve and I, we danced an odd sort of dance with one another. I wasn’t the most social of creatures, and probably not what he had been expecting. Sure, it was nice to have him by my side if I needed to ask something, but for the most I kept quietly to myself. I didn’t have the two books that I bought or the little notebook that I had begun. So for the first week I spent at Steve’s, I literally just sat around. 

I would sit in an armchair from morning to evening and do nothing. I would think, and I would watch as Steve moved about in his apartment. I would go up occasionally to eat, I would use the bathroom, and I would go to bed. I didn’t talk much, and I asked even less. I must have been the weirdest roommate on the planet, and I don’t doubt that I set the hair in Steve’s neck up on edge by just being a silent ghost. 

One night when he was asleep, I snuck out, and went to gather my things at the safe house. I came back. Come morning, I’d be reading the Howling Commandos book again in the arm chair. hat would be the newest extent of my activities. 

Steve didn’t give up though, constantly and enthusiastically offering for me to try new things. To come join him and watch television, seeing if I liked a type of movie or a show. He put on music, and ask if I liked it, often backing it up with that it had been the sort of music I had liked before. The first time I asked Steve if I could borrow his laptop to look something up, he positively beamed at me and told me that I didn’t have to ask for permission, there was no password on it any longer so anything that I wanted to look up, I was free to go ahead and do. 

So the first few weeks, nothing really happened. I would read about him, I would attempt to read about me. But I never really got a sensation of deja vu when watching a documentary. I would never begin an article or a chapter in a book and know how it ended before I reached the final page. So for a while, I became a bit depressed, the whole ordeal just seemed futile and I started to doubt it. I started to believe that I had just made the whole ordeal up, that I just remembered the train and falling because of the height of things when we fought on the highway. 

I started to believe that I wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes, but that I was an imposter of some sort. I never told Steve about those thoughts and that fear, he wouldn’t have it any other way, because he seemed to be utterly and completely convinced of who I was. He seemed to be able to look at me and know for certain that I was this person who once upon a time had meant so much for him. He had such intense faith for it. 

The truth was, I wanted to be that Bucky, too. I felt the need to be someone, I wanted to be someone more than what I was. I still felt like a tool, like a weapon to be used and I just, wanted some form of an identity back.

 

\--

 

The thing about sleeping when you’re being frozen, put into cryo, or just crash into freezing water, is that it’s dreamless. Because every little thing about you is put on halt, well most of it is, means that there’s hardly any function whatsoever. So you’re not aware of anything around you, because there’s no part of you that can even send out signals to your brain to register, and even if there was, your brain can’t accept them. 

There can be an explosion right next to you and you would be none the wiser. 

Which means, that you also don’t dream. You’re gone so deeply and so heavily, that you can’t even dream yourself away. You’re just stuck in an all black eternity, but on the bright side, you’re not even aware that you’re stuck in it, so it’s not that bad. 

It feels a little like being put under for sedation, except only much, much colder. When you wake up out of surgery you’re still naturally cold, but ice cold is something different. We’re not going to go into that, we’re going focus on the dreams. 

I had been staying with Steve for a couple of weeks, about two months since Pierce had taken me out of cryo and hadn’t gone back under. Still, most of my sleep, when I managed to sleep, remained dark and empty. That’s not to say that I was going to bed every single evening at ten and waking up again at seven. By then I still didn’t have a fixed sleeping schedule like Steve had. I was still working towards that, but physically I found myself tossing and turning at night, and spent most of them awake. 

I was far too used to being awake days on end and then getting one big long sleep. I wasn’t getting that there. I was still awake for a couple of days, and when my body finally crashed me down to sleep, you’d expect that I would be out as a light for a good twelve hours. That wasn’t the case. I only slept for about three to four hours before I was awake and I would do the entire thing all over again. Of course, in the long run this is just as bad, and it didn’t take long for me to feel exhausted continuously, because I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I started to drift off every other hour for an hour or so. Which meant disrupted sleep, still exhausted, still a moody cranky bitch about it but I still wasn’t talking back. I’d wake up, I’d eat, and I’d drift right back off again, I’d wake up, I’d read, and eventually fall asleep reading. 

This went on for a while, and then finally, slowly, my sleeping schedule started to ease out. I started to sleep longer at night as I grew more comfortable in the apartment. Nothing had happened, and I still took Steve’s word that absolutely nothing  _ would _ happen either. I started gathering up my little nest on the floor that I had made for myself in the corner of my room, and I started to sleep in the bed. 

That was the beginning of normality, and it was also the beginning of dreams for me. 

I hadn’t recovered much about who I was. I did my best, reading, watching things, searching the internet, just watching Steve. But for the most part my fingers were still bleeding from trying to pry open that crack. I never asked Steve if he was disappointed in that, I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Even back then. 

And with hardly anything to go on, there was nothing for me to follow. All the pathways that I had, I had walked tons of times over and over again in the hope of something new. I knew the Captain America book and the Howling Commandos book by heart. But not because I had lived it, only because I had read them so many times over and over that I knew them back to back. 

Instead, what broke it all, loose so to speak, was when Steve and I were watching a movie one evening. I still didn’t see the point in them, but Steve had suggested that we watch one, I was discovering a love for popcorn and the movie generally relaxed me enough so that I would drift off into sleep without much trouble.

We were watching some comedy, I don’t remember exactly what it was called if I’m going to be entirely honest with you. It doesn’t matter. The point is that at one moment during the film there was a man that slammed the door open and walked into the house or apartment or whatever and shouted  _ You’ll never guess what I found out! _

I didn’t think anything about it then, it didn’t matter to me, didn’t ring any bells and Steve was busy giving himself hamster cheeks. We finished the movie, Steve went to bed, and I stayed up a little while longer. Eventually I admitted defeat and went to bed. I read through my journal a couple of times and then I went to sleep as well. 

That night, I had my first dream in over seventy years, which was equally disorienting as it was frightening. Because you’ve got to realise, at the time when it happened and I woke up, I had no idea of what just happened to me, and what the hell the images, sound and fuck, even a smell was supposed to be. It felt like I had done some form of astral projection or something. 

I had dreamt of my father, who I knew what he looked like thanks to the internet and a lot of digging. I had dreamt that he had slammed his way into an apartment, into a room that served as both kitchen, dining area and living room area all at once. With soot up his arms and creating stains on a white top that would remain there forever. I dreamt of that man shouting  _ Winnie! The priest is fucking his maid!  _ A scene not entirely unlike of what we had watched on television the evening before.

I woke up in a cold sweat not long after that, I never really got to hear the story. For a couple of days I was rattled. I think Steve noticed, but he never asked me about it. Just as I never told him about what I had dreamt and kept it to myself. A couple of days later when I started to feel better about it, I brought it up to Steve, in the hopes that I wasn’t crazy, that I just had dreamt something in combination with the movie. I hoped that what I was about to ask Steve would have some sort of figment of the truth, that it was something that had really happened and that he could confirm the story. 

When I finally picked up the courage to ask Steve about it, he lit up like he was sunshine incarnate. 

It wasn’t something that I had made up with the movie, it was something that actually had happened. He hadn’t been there himself when the incident had occurred, he told me. But the very day after it had happened I had told him on the way to school and we had both wound up laughing at it, and for weeks we couldn’t look at the priest of our church during sermons without breaking out into giggles. My mother got flushed every damn time she spoke to the maid. 

I couldn’t remember more than what I had dreamt, but that was okay. Steve knew the entire story anyway. We found out then and there that everything was still there, and easy to draw on. As long as Steve helped me pave the road and helped me figure out what I was about to say. He filled in the gaps, and before I knew it I’d blurt out a sentence or two more to a story that I didn’t even know that I knew in the first place.

The first bit that I remembered, was the story of how my father had figured out that the priest was fucking his maid. 

 

\--

 

I’ll tell you the story, because we both think that it’s pretty fucking funny ourselves, and we still laugh about it. We tell it to our friends if the topic ever sways into a direction like that when we invite them over for food or what not. 

My father, as you all know by now from previous chapters, was a hard worker. But not always entirely legal. He did plenty of odd jobs off the book. Everybody did back then just as people still do today. My father was a man who worked with his hands and had over the years built up a large amount of skill sets. 

One of these skills that he had built up over the years was sweeping chimneys. Not that he did it often, most of us lived in apartments and it wasn’t exactly like we had many chimneys, and the apartment buildings usually had the maintenance man do it. He helped, occasionally, and that was how he learned. The Priests, however, because the church had a lot of money back then as well, all lived in houses, luxury homes, with maids and everything because they were single men who “needed someone to run the household”. They were also very intent on keeping themselves rich, which meant, that a lot of outside maintenance to the house was done off the book. 

Now my father wasn’t quite a religious man, he was holiday religious, so he accepted the job for extra cash, and not because he was a god-fearing man who would help a Priest. Hell, chances were if you were a priest he hated you. So Priest or no Priest, if you paid he’d do the job for you, as long as said payment was in dollars and not in mighty prayers. That was how he wound up accepting the job to sweep out the chimney. 

Throughout the entire job, the Priest was off in the church and the maid was at home, keeping an eye on my dad, which meant that she was up his ass all the time and that annoyed him. Ensuring that he wouldn’t make off with some silver or something to sell by the side. As a result, he decided to get back at the maid for annoying him. 

As he had been staying, she had been running around do to the laundry, wash the sheets in the house and the one moment she left him alone, had been when she had gone up to change the sheets into clean ones. 

The house had three chimneys, because it was a large home. One in the main area downstairs, and one in each bedroom. He didn’t do anything in the main area or the one to the Priests bedroom. But in the Maid’s bedroom, he started to get devious. Once done, he rubbed the fire-poker full of soot and put it in her bed. Figuring that she’d be pissed enough with him because he had seen her run around and change sheets. 

Nothing ever came of it. And a couple of months later he was asked to come and do the job again, which my father thought was odd at first. He didn’t think that he would ever get invited back in the house to do the job again. But money was money, and it was harsh times so he accepted. 

The maid never confronted him about it, and went about the same way as she had done the last time. Making sure he didn’t steal anything, hell, she was even doing laundry again. By the time he had reached her bedroom he was proper suspicious, and couldn’t find the fire-poker. At least at first. 

He found it still laying in her bed after all those months, and drew the conclusion that she was taking her maid duties for the priest a level beyond and was sleeping with him in his bed. He found it hilarious, all his friends found it hilarious. Steve and I found it hilarious and my mother found it hilarious, even if she didn’t want to admit it. 

Eventually the story came out, the priest got relocated to somewhere else, maid in tow. It goes without saying that our next priest that came after had to work quite a bit before he earned the respect of everyone who went to the mass. There were quite a couple of chuckles at first when they found out that priest had also brought a maid. Once he heard the story and was told why people were acting like they did towards him he clarified that his maid was married and went home every day, even had two kids. That turned out to be the truth, and by far less amusing. 

 

\--

 

It really just took one memory getting loose for the others to follow. And in hindsight, it is pretty funny considering  _ what _ I wound up remembering first. But soon other things followed. I started remembering my mother, remembering she worked in a butcher shop for a kind man, but I couldn’t place his name. I started to remember my sisters, and I started to remember doing homework with Steve in his kitchen with Sarah occasionally helping us. 

It was flashes, mostly, and I was content with that at first. Because they did start to feel like mine, I did start to feel some level of affection towards them, and a need to claim them as mine. They didn’t feel like the memories of one James Buchanan Barnes anymore, they started to feel personal to me. And eventually, as that started to progress, I accepted the name Bucky again. 

Mostly because at that point there was no denying that I once upon had been Bucky Barnes. I knew now that it was the truth, and that I had been lied to. He was a stranger still, but that stranger was me. I wasn’t fully him, not entirely. There was still some part of me that would forever be the Winter Soldier, and there were many parts of the Soldier that I didn’t want to give up, either. 

That presented a wonderful opportunity to me, because I realised I could build myself, I could create myself and decide who I was going to be, and how the world was going to see me. But most importantly, I had full control in over how I saw myself, which was a first for my lifetime, and maybe even the first for Bucky Barnes as well. 

 

~~*~~

 

Namazzi sat in front of him, with dark eyes, watching him intently. Had Bucky not known the woman as well as he did, he would have found her stare downright creepy. But over the past two years he had seen her, he come to known her relatively well, and she knew him better than he knew himself that was for sure. So despite her stare, Bucky sat relaxed in the couch, legs pulled up and her cat in his lap, purring loudly.

“It’s just, I don’t know.” Bucky shrugged lightly with his shoulder, scratching Liya under her chin. The cat lifted her head up at the touch, pawing at his shirt in contentment. Namazzi didn’t say anything to interrupt, and gave Bucky the time that he needed to figure out what to say himself. “I guess I got caught up in writing the good stuff, you know? I could deny that it happened by just not writing it. I didn’t even have to touch on the topic if I didn’t want to. But it’s a life story, so it just was inevitable I suppose. I guess it just surprised me more than I was willing to admit. How could it surprise me really, I knew it was coming.” 

“You just said it yourself. You could keep denying it if you wanted. You had the power to do it. Why didn’t you?” She asked, her voice steady with an air of nonchalant to it. Bucky had never minded that, it had instantly given him the feeling that she wouldn’t take any of his bullshit when he tried to avoid talking about something. And she never had. Bucky had instantly liked that about her. The other therapists he had seen had tried to handle him like he was glass. He wasn’t glass, he was fucking steel. 

“I was going to write the truth. I was going to tell how it all really went down.” Bucky snorted, Liya opened one of her eyes and looked up to him, displeased at the sound and stopped purring. “I couldn’t very well deny the truth in a book about it, now could I? It just… grew bigger than what I had planned, that’s all. I got invested in it.” 

“Don’t you think that it’s good though? That you’re writing the truth about what you’ve been through? Sometimes it’s not only the public and everyone around you that needs to know and accept the truth. Sometimes you have to do that yourself. Don’t you think that writing out these chapters that set you back, was a way for you to accept that truth?” 

“Maybe.” Bucky gave a noncommittal shrug to it and looked back to Namazzi. “Didn’t have to react like I did. That’s what I mean. I didn’t touch the damn thing for six months cause I didn’t like what it said. Isn’t that some form of denial?” 

“Not necessarily.” Namazzi shrugged. “It was the first time you went into proper detail about your traumas. It was the first time you allowed yourself to pour out everything that’s been cooped up in you, that you haven’t felt like you’ve been able to talk about. Or haven’t wanted. And that sort of thing is exhausting. It’s something that one does have to recover from. Remember what I said about just wanting to sleep and laying around when we first met?” 

“Sometimes it’s healthy. It’s a sign from your body that you need to take it easy. It’s a way of healing.” Bucky parroted, although he still didn’t quite understand it. It  _ had _ felt good to just lay round in the bed, and then the couch and do nothing. He had gotten up from the couch eventually, hadn’t he? 

“Don’t you think that’s what you did those six months when you didn’t write? Heal from what you wrote down?” She asked. Bucky opened his mouth to speak, but found that he didn’t have an argument to give in return to her. 

“Doesn’t mean that I’m ready to talk about it, how’s that healing?” Bucky eventually asked after a couple of seconds. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Namazzi said. “When you’re at peace with something, you don’t always have to talk about it with everyone, you don’t have to let everyone know. When you’re healed, who are you? Yourself? Or are you your trauma?”

Bucky didn’t have an answer to either question. And for a moment longer, he kept quiet. Namazzi didn’t say anything, as was her custom. A very simple rule. She would speak, he would speak, she would speak, he would speak. She would only say one thing and leave the rest up to him, and only Bucky was allowed to speak more times than one. 

“I’d be me.” Bucky muttered. “Or at least, I hope I’d be me.” He said with a shrug and looked down to Liya in his lap again. She had shut both her eyes again. “How will I know? That I’m finally me?” He asked softly, scratching the cat behind her ear. The purring began again. 

“That’s different for everyone. I can’t answer that question for you. But one day you will wake up, and you will know.” 

Bucky smirked a bit and tilted his head back to look at her again. “When that day comes, will you be happy to be rid of me?” He asked her, grinning widely. Namazzi barked out a laugh and threw her head back. Her thick curly hair bounced all over her head. 

“Bucky, I think you’re such a can of worms that when we’ve sealed that jar, there’ll be another one we have to work on,” Namazzi said, and Bucky laughed. 


	13. Becoming Bucky

“You’re getting real close to finishing it, aren’t you?” Steve asked, sticking his tongue between his lips as he cut the vegetables with complete and uttermost focus. The only task that Bucky dared to give to Steve when they were cooking together. After all these years and being able to afford proper food, Bucky had hoped that Steve would learn how to cook properly. It had turned out to be something that Steve had only postponed because now the glory of ordering in food existed. Bucky felt pretty confident that before he had come back to Steve, that he ordered in food at least five times a week and the other two days, ate the leftovers from the previous day. 

“I like to think that I am.” Bucky turned on the stove, giving the pan a moment to heat up before he put the fish fillet in the pan. “Got about two… no, three chapters left to write, then it’ll be complete. I think. Well, at least caught up to where we are now. Got to write about hooking up with you again, and Wakanda and all that stuff. So it’s progress really, all good stuff.” 

“Happy stuff?” Steve asked, looking up from the cutting board and daring to steal part of a baby tomato and put it in his mouth. Bucky, with his back turned towards him, hadn’t noticed it. Although he was fully aware that Steve was more than likely capable of stealing.

“Happy stuff,” Bucky confirmed with a smile, yes, he was more than convinced that the rest of the book would just be light and happy. It felt like it would be, sure there would be some hardships he’d have to mention, but none would be anything like the ones he already had brought up. “Just happy stuff. You know, settling.” Behind him, Steve made a pleased noise. “Going to be writing about how I figured myself out again tonight, I think. And if I get to that point, maybe even touch on us getting together again, I think that’ll be enough for the next chapter. 

“What are you going to call that one? Fucking Captain America two point O?” Steve teased with a chuckle. Bucky rolled his eyes in response and poked the fish in the pan. Beside him, both of the dogs stared up at what he was doing. Winnie’s tail was wagging in slow motion, speeding up ever so slightly whenever she thought Bucky’s eyes landed on her. Roxy, just looked like a seal on land. 

“You laugh, but I just might call it Fucking Steve Rogers. It’s not exactly like you were off saving the world then,” Bucky responded. Steve let out a laugh, and at the sound of it Bucky couldn’t help but giggle a bit. “Fucking Steve Rogers, that might be something. I mean it is worth to think about, we suddenly got to do a whole lot more than we ever did in the war.” 

“I swear, you just want to tell the entire world that I was a virgin, and that you got to claim that card, don’t you?” Steve asked with a huff. Bucky laughed and Steve joined in pretty quickly. Steve wasn’t angry about that. Not really. 

 

~~*~~

 

**_Chapter 13 - Becoming Bucky_ **

 

Finally knowing something about myself was a relief. There was still a lot that I had to build, but at least I had shaped some form of foundation for who I was going to be. I had something to build on to. I had some things to get started with. It did make me feel more relaxed and at ease in Steve’s apartment. And in combination with the mission that Steve had given me to look after myself, I started to take a little more liberty when I was passing my time. 

You know how I was doing just that at first, unless you skipped the previous chapter entirely. But I would just sit around in an armchair and if I wasn’t reading the two books that I owned or writing in the journal, I would just watch every movement that Steve made, and on a handful of occasions I’d watch what was happening on the street outside. But I didn’t  _ do _ anything until Steve prompted me. 

And so, bit by bit, I started to get hobbies to keep myself occupied with. While I was fully capable to just sit in a chair from nine in the morning to nine in the evening without moving and without doing anything thanks to my training, that didn’t mean that I enjoyed it. Hell, I hated it, but I did what I had to do, and for a while in Steve’s apartment that was exactly what I did. 

Until, one day Steve was making us both sandwiches and I got fed up. 

Because you see, as I’ve mentioned in bits throughout this book, Steve is a terrible cook. This means that somehow he was capable of even fucking up something basic as sandwiches. He can make them as two seperate ones, one with just bread and cheese, no butter. And one with bread and ham. Who the fuck does that?! Nobody! Just put it on the same fucking sandwich and use butter for the love of god and if that isn’t enough, make a second one!

So I stared in disbelief at him one day when he was making these sandwiches, and I told him,  _ you know what? I’ll make my own, thanks _ . Steve looked stunned for a moment, first at me and then with the sandwiches. Part of him was happy because I was taking the initiative to try something myself, and the other part of him wondered what was wrong with his sandwiches.

My social filter that I have now, wasn’t quite as prominent then, and I outright told him that his sandwiches sucked. I think he got insulted for a moment. At least until I came out with my own sandwich, which was bread, cheese and ham on the same damn sandwich, mayo, lettuce, a bit of tomato and cucumber that I had found in the fridge. Still basic in the eyes of many, but compared to what I had been eating previously it was by far superior. 

Steve eyed my sandwich, and then sheepishly asked if I could make him one as well. I did, of course, and he sounded real pleased when he was eating it, as if he never had enjoyed a homemade sandwich that good before. Considering how he made his own, I was very inclined to believe that was the case. 

Later that week I tried my first attempt at cooking, which unlike the sandwich, didn’t go that fantastic. If anything, it was rather terrible. But I wasn’t willing to admit it because I was getting sick of Steve making mac and cheese all the damn time. Now the truth is out, yes Steve, I know my attempt at a regular spaghetti sucked, I know that the meatballs were undercooked and the pasta was overcooked, but it was still fucking better than mac and cheese for what felt like the millionth time. I was over it. 

And I suppose, that was how I wound up with the hobby of cooking. Partially to get away from Steve’s atrocious cooking, and partially because I had found that when I was making the disastrous spaghetti that it was rather relaxing. It put me in a headspace where I was able to put everything at the side, and maybe that was good. Because I put so much fore and focus into trying to remember that I was trying to will it so, which isn’t how it works. Not really, you’ve got to do things. And so, cooking turned out to be the perfect break that I was looking after. 

Now, you’ve got to realise, my culinary experience was still pretty limited. Considering I had lived essentially on take out, mac and cheese, fucked up sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs and dry chicken in the oven, there was a lot I hadn't tried. So at first, I will also admit this, I made some pretty disastrous combinations and dishes. Food combinations that really shouldn’t have been made because they seemed brilliant at the time. 

Custard and fish sticks, ketchup on shrimp, a slice of cheese and nutella for a late night snack. I have made many many mistakes that I can’t justify no matter how hard I try, which I won't even try to justify. Must have been funny for Steve though, because at first I was adamant that it was edible just because I wanted to avoid his cooking for the life of me. 

But eventually, I started looking up dishes on the internet, and after having tried and tasted a number of things I started to make better guesses of what went well together. I started to get the hang of it. My second attempt at spaghetti was infinitely better than the first one and we actually enjoyed eating that together. And I was proud, so fucking proud over having made something that tasted good, that Steve also liked and to have done it all myself. If I ignore the help of the internet but that shouldn’t really count. 

From then on I’ve pretty much been the one making food for us, Steve’s allowed to exist in the kitchen, but if it’s for the pair of us he’s not allowed to make anything unless he’s under my supervision. It’s worked well so far for the both of us, and cooking has done me a lot of good. It further relaxed me at Steve’s place, because it gave me a chore, in an odd way. Something to do and that was expected of me, understand me right here. I wasn’t fully responsible for every meal of the day, but it gave me something to do. 

And eventually, that led me to leave the house with Steve when I wanted to try out a specific dish and when I needed specific items for it. It also brought me a lot of joy to find exactly what I needed, and it brought me out amongst people in an odd way, even if they didn’t really have a clue who I was. I was still in the safe with that. 

Given time, the more I started to cook, the more I tried to make things that I remembered from my childhood, chasing different tastes can be quite a thrill. I started to look up dishes from back then and found that they were rather bland, sure, but there’s still the air of nostalgia about it. No matter how good your own cooking is, or that of the modern world (seriously though? what’s with all the sugar and processed shit?), nothing beats the cooking that is latched into your memory from a grandmother or a mother. And nothing made me feel better than when I tried baking, which I’m not as good at, but got something right. Steve’s face when I made cookies in a way quite similar that his mother had done once upon a time was wonderful. And here’s the beauty with that, as we ate those cookies we wound up talking of times when we used to steal more cookies than we were allowed to and ruined our appetite, and how we just had them during the Christmas holidays because they were festive. Taste and memories are often intertwined. 

At the end of the day, there was a lot for me to jot down in my journal, and I was pleased, I was happy. I felt happy for the first time in, well, ever. 

 

\--

 

I told you that HYDRA made me forget my birthday. I also told you that Steve made me remember. 

The funny thing is, in a way I knew it was my birthday, and while I was slowly starting to see myself as Bucky, whenever I read about myself in books I still did so rather objectively. So if you asked me what date my birthday was, I would be able to give you an answer. But that would have been it, there wouldn’t have been any meaning behind it. Steve, however, gave it meaning again, and made me remember a bit what birthdays were all about. 

It’s not easy to surprise me, I’m always on guard, partially because of the Winter Soldier training and partially because a constant underlying sense of anxiety, even still to this day. It’s lessened, but back then it kept me hyper aware of everything that was happening in the apartment. But somehow with all this going on, Steve managed to surprise me still. 

He had gone out of his way and planned a little surprise party, just for the two of us. During his morning run that week, he had gone into a bakery and placed an order for a birthday cake. The same sort of cake that I had loved back when we were kids, and he had picked it up at the end of his run on the morning of.

So when I first entered the kitchen that morning I was stunned by the sight, and didn’t fully understand the need for all the decorations that he had hung up. Brightly coloured and the Happy Birthday message, presents laying on the table and the box with the cake in the middle of it. He looked so excited, so happy to be throwing this little party to surprise me, that I actually felt a little guilty about reacting as little as I did at the time. 

But it was overwhelming, in a good sort of way, despite the confusion that there was an entire day where I would be in the focus. I couldn’t understand how that would be different from any other day, and I couldn’t understand why  _ he  _ couldn’t be in the focus. It didn’t matter, Steve told me, there was no reason to fret about that now. 

He gave me presents, spoiled me completely and utterly. He got me a Kindle, and had filled it to the brim with a bunch of science fiction books that he thought I would enjoy, and had filled it with books I had read once upon a time. He gave me a laptop of my own, so I could start saving documents and articles rather than having to keep asking Steve if it was okay, thus freeing my search for whatever I felt like I needed. Netflix on that, so I could watch movies. He gave me a phone and a number so I could call him and text him, added Spotify so I could listen to whatever music I felt like. He gave me some of the best pajama pants I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I’ve got no shame in saying that they’re pink and covered in llamas. They’re soft and the warmest piece of clothing I’ve ever owned. Wooly socks, new clothes so I had more than the two outfits I was rotating. A blanket of my own, a coffee mug, headphones, hair ties, a cookbook. A little plant to put on the table in my room. Two poster books, one of space and one of natural landmarks, so I could put up pictures and make it more personal. 

I don’t think he realises how much those items came to mean to me. And how much they  _ still  _ mean to me. They were the very first things that I came to view as my own possessions, something that I had complete and utter control over and that Steve had to ask  _ me _ if he could use them. I had the power to tell him no. 

As the day passed, I came to love all my presents, I came to love that the day was about me, and I had fun. When I was in bed that evening, I was like a child, wearing the warm pajama pants that I had gotten, the socks, the blanket thrown over me and the kindle in my hand, trying to decide what to read first. The laptop was set up on the desk, and you can’t believe the amount of joy I had from something as simple as picking a background picture. I went on to google and I googled ‘dog background’. I wound up settling with a cartoony picture of a variety of silly looking breeds all with their tongues out of their mouth. My plant that I had named Frank was on the desk, adding colour.

I had already hung up about four of the posters and was deciding what to add next. I had the phone with me and had headphones in listening to music. Drinking tea from the new mug, my hair tied back and the cookbook on my nightstand after having decided what to prepare for dinner the next day. At that moment, I was really fucking content with my life. 

I had gone from owning practically nothing, to having things of my own, things to fill the dresser with, things to put in the nightstand and fill the shelves with. They were still empty but, they’d get there with time. I could own things now, and no one would come and take them away from me. 

In the end, I don’t know if I came to pick my book on the Kindle by some instinctive level, or if it was fate that guided my hand a little that evening. Who even knows. It doesn’t matter, amongst the hundreds of books that Steve had put on it, I wound up tapping one by Jules Verne. And I started reading 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

By the time that morning had come, I was starting to finish up that book. I hadn’t been able to stop. My eyes were burning and I was completely and utterly exhausted, but I hadn’t been able to put it down because as I read, the whole story felt so familiar. It felt as if I knew what was going to happen, even if I had no clue of what would be written on the next page. Yet, as I read it, I was filled with a sense of… non-surprise, yet at the same time in awe of a story that I quickly came to love again. 

I went out that morning and I showed him the first page of the book after I had finished him. I looked him straight in his eyes and asked him if I had ever read that before. Steve seemed to hesitate at first when I asked him, as if he wasn't certain that he should give the answer. But I pressed him, and in the end he told me that it used to be my favorite once upon a time. And that I had even read it to him when he had a fever. 

I cried when I found that out. The good sort of tears, the ones that were overjoyed at having found something that I loved so much, and that I still loved. 

 

\--

 

I wish that when I was remembering, I had a way to filter out what I was willing to remember. I wanted to just know from my birth up until the time that I fell off the train. Everything after my fall I wanted to forget and leave forgotten for as long as I could help it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. I had to come to remember many of the things that HYDRA had used me for. I had to come to remember all the people that had been murdered by my hand, thanks to them. 

That wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences, and it was something that shook me to my core. Therefor a little while, I remembered something that I didn’t want to do. And you may not believe it, but also something that made me feel such tremendous shame and guilt about even existing that it left a wound that I still haven’t fully dealt with, maybe never even fully will. 

As you hopefully may have realised by this point if you’re still reading this, is that while I killed people, that I was only doing what I was told. What I was being made to do, up until the point that you may believe so to speak. It’s still very easy to say that I did it, believe me, I still do that every damn day and every damn time the thought seeps into my head. A part of me will always believe that I was responsible. That I could have done something, that I could have refused and that I could have rebelled against them. 

It’s moments like those that I have to remind myself just what happened when I was given a gun and was placed alone in a room with Zola, and my ear starts ringing whenever I do. I can’t convince you that I didn’t do it, that’s a decision that you’ve got to make for yourself if you decide if you do or not. Writing this has as you know, been to get the facts straight, not to ask for anyone’s forgiveness for what I’ve been used. The only person that can offer that form of forgiveness, a little bit of ease and lift any blame off my shoulders for that is me. I don’t need anyone else to do that for me. It’s just that it’s not always easy. 

I don’t really remember when those memories started to come back. I do know it was after my birthday, because by the time that it happened I was already wearing my pink llama pajama pants because they were so warm. We were watching a documentary on television. We did that a lot back then. Steve did because he still had a whole lot to catch up about when it came to world history and important events and discoveries even if he had come a long way. 

I at least had the luxury of knowing somewhat how the past looked, and if I sat down I could plan out some level of linear timeline that matched what we used to see. I just never really knew the who’s and the what’s and the why’s that had required for them to wake me up in the first place. And that was what I wanted to know. 

Now, it’s important to note that I still very much knew what I was being used for. But it was in a warped sense of awareness. A little bit like my birthday, I knew that I had been used to murder, and I had nearly murdered Steve in the progress, being given missions to assassinate people and the pride I took in that. So it felt a little like a video game. Steve had one of those and I had given it a try, not certain what game it was, doesn’t matter, the point is that the game gave me the freedom to go about and kill people. And you know how you do that in games without any emotional input about the whole thing? That was a little bit how I saw what I had done by then. 

Just like I had been a figure in a video game and someone had been playing with me. They had pressed a button and as a result I had been the one to pull the trigger and shoot someone in the face. It wasn’t any more complicated than that. The thing was, I never really knew who I was shooting, I was given targets and I was given a vague reason as to why, usually something that threatened HYDRA’s perfect view and the world that I had helped shape over the years. 

And as we were watching this documentary, which was about the discoveries that one doctor had made in particular about a disease. He had made a antidote, and was about to spread it to the world which would have single handedly eradicated the Dark Fever virus that at the time was running rampant in Brazil and killing people by the hundreds. Except he never got to administer the antidote. 

Because this Doctor Covaco got murdered, him and his entire team and the Brazilian government, despite their best efforts never managed to solve the murder. In the end it was stamped that there had just been a band of ravagers that had come by, thought that whatever Doctor Covaco had in his little outpost looked expensive and made quick work of it all, stealing whatever looked of value to them. 

Two million Brazilians died because the vaccine went missing and there wasn’t enough research in his outpost to recreate it before they finally managed to put a stop to it. 

As I was watching that documentary with increasingly more focus because it sounded familiar to me, I realized that it hadn’t been ravagers that had put an end to Doctor Covaco and run off with research because it looked expensive and they could make a profit of it. As I was watching, I remembered that it had been raining that night, absolutely and utterly pouring enough for it to cause landslides. 

I remember shooting the scientists firsts, and then last Dr. Covaco before taking all the antidotes that I could find, necessary papers along with it. I made a mess of the outpost to make it look like amateurs, and I went off to give my handler at the time, the antidotes and all the scientific research. And I remember, that HYDRA didn’t want there to be a cure out for the Black Fever, because the Black Fever had been their creation and somewhat of an experiment for the future. They never decided to use it. 

I was sick to my stomach when I watched that, the realisation that two million people died because of me came over me like a truck hitting me. If I had just simply not killed them, if I had gone back and told my handler that I hadn’t been able to go through with the mission for whatever reason and taken my inevitable punishment for it, then two million people would have lived and wouldn’t have gone through two weeks of excruciating hell before the Black Fever claimed them. 

Two million people, because I had planted five bullets in five different people and put an end to their cause for humanity. They had wanted to help, and I had stopped them with the belief that they were threatening HYDRA’s perfect vision. 

I had to scramble up from the couch and make my way to the bathroom, where I threw up everything that I had eaten and drank in the early evening, and I started sobbing. Pretty much wailing that I had been the cause of it all, that I had killed all those people and that it was my fault. That I was a murderer. 

For a while, Steve didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I was in such a state of hysterics at the relevelation of that alone, and in that very same instant I came to wonder and to fear how many other people had died because I had followed HYDRA’s orders? 

I was credited with over a dozen assassinations in the intelligence community, of the ones that they knew of. I knew myself by then, that I had completed at least fifty assassinations during my decades with HYDRA, and this did not include innocent bystanders and goons, such as the assistants of Dr. Covaco. So the death toll of my hands had just in one instant shot up into the millions.

Millions were dead because of me, and that was something that made me want to die myself at that point with guilt. That’s something that still keeps me up at night, that sneaks into my dreams to remind me that I am a murderer. That sours my day to the point where I retreat back to bed for a week and hide away from the world. For the longest of time I truly did believe I was fully responsible for all of these murders, that I was one of the most vile people walking on this planet. 

It took a long, long time for me to learn, to stop denying to myself that I was in fact  _ not  _ a murderer. To remind myself that I had been brainwashed and that I hadn’t been able to help myself. That I had to kill people or they would have murdered me, to this day I still don’t know how the latter justifies me murdering, I don’t think it’s ever okay. But it’s like the soldiers that I had fought with in the war, how they had to come to terms with the fact that they had killed people to survive and to make the world a better place. 

History is written by the winners, and when I was HYDRA’s own personal little tool and weapon, I merely wrote what they wanted me to write. At least until HYDRA Uprising. 

That is pretty much the only thing that gives me that stamp, because I was on the wrong side when it all came crashing down. Now, there’s been research done, investigations, and I’m excused from my crimes as I was, now considered, a prisoner of war who they had put through torture and brainwashing, the cat is out of the bag on that department. But a government has an easy time saying that you’re not responsible for murders, mostly because they don’t really find themselves in similar situations about the whole ordeal.

It took a long time for me to accept of myself that I am not a murderer, and that I am not responsible for the events that they made me do. However, this is not something that I believe  _ every  _ day. There are days when I think it’s the biggest lie that anyone ever has told me, even larger than the lies that HYDRA spun to keep me in control. 

But today, I believe that I’m not a murderer. Today, I both realize and understand that it was events out of my control, that I did what I had to do to survive. And that only makes me a victim and a survivor. 

Tomorrow I might believe elsewise. But that’s tomorrow, what I believe today about myself is what matters. 

And one of these days in the future, who knows, maybe I’ll recover enough, go through enough therapy and be told over and over that I reach a different level of brainwashing. And maybe one day I will sleep okay again, one day I might not dream about it, one day I might be able to watch anything on television without feeling unnerved about what I’m seeing. 

And for all those who have died because I pulled a trigger, or because I’ve used my hand or a rope or whatever I ended up using, I truly am sorry. 

 

\--

 

Memories about me and Steve, had a tendency to sneak up on me. And many of those memories I kept to myself at first. Not out of secrecy, no. I kept them to myself like any other memories because I wanted to feel certain about what I was going to bring up to begin with. That included anything that involved him. 

Eventually, between memories of just childhood, early adult years and war, there started to seep in memories that at first I found rather questionable. Everything that I ever had read, everything that Steve had ever told me, was that we had been friends. And  _ just  _ friends. So you can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I had a dream where Steve had his hand down my pants in a way that friends most definitely didn't. That I kept to myself for a long time, and wondered just what the hell it had been. 

I thought that maybe I had reached a sort of end when it came to dreams, I used to dream the most about memories then, and I figured that maybe I had depleted that vault and would now be dreaming about other things that didn’t make any sense like any human being. And really, when you dream something like that, how do you go to your friend, and at the time your only friend and ask if you had imagined their hand down your pants and getting you off or not. That’s something you don’t ask unless you are entirely sure. 

And hell, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about romantic and let alone sexual relationships. It had been the last of my priorities to properly dig through and understand. I remembered girlfriends more, Steve and I spoke about them a lot, how I used to go out dancing with Minnie and others. So I went ahead and assumed like most people and most of the world does in regards to someone, and that I was straight. 

A romantic life hadn’t been my main focus in finding out who I was so I had taken what I remembered and just accepted it, I had been much more concerned with finding out who I was as a person. So I discarded the idea that Steve and I ever got our rocks off together and thought that it was just a dream in a new stage of self discovery. Sure it was a little bit difficult to look him in his eyes for a little while after that happened, but I like to think of myself at somewhat of an adult and I got over myself and kept my little secret to myself. 

When I got my second hint, I won't go into detail exactly what it was because frankly they’re private and I’m not about to air our sex life, it was a little bit harder to deny that it was just something my head had cooked up on it’s own. Because that one felt different, that one I could even place in a gap in my memory of when it could have happened in the first place. And so I became a bit more attentive of Steve while I started to discover that side of myself. 

Steve was always keeping an eye on me, always smiling and always happy to help. Observing what I was doing and ready to come and help me should I need it. Social queues were something that I had relearnt with Steve all while starting to express them of my own, and the more I paid attention to that, the more queues so to speak, I started to see; I realised that there was a whole other side to how Steve saw our friendship that I hadn’t figured out yet. He could look at me longingly at times, with his head in his hand and a small smile ghosting over his lips, and then when I spoke to him he could look like he had just been woken out of a daydream. 

He could look so immensely proud over me for small things that at that point had in my own opinion become insignificant. When we hugged, I would feel his hand over the small over my back, stroking me gently, and he would do the same if I ever was laying right next to him on the couch while watching something on television. We hugged a lot then, I had started to grow okay with it and it was nice being touched by someone after not having had a single friendly hand be put on my shoulder since forever. He would brush his fingers through my hair, softly and gently. We even slept together in his bedroom, all huddled up to keep warm and with that reasoning, too. We would watch something on television in his room and we’d drift off together, and I loved doing it. I felt both calm and at ease, and I felt safe, because Steve was right there keeping an eye on me and he would, and did, wake me when I was having nightmares that I couldn’t rouse myself out of. I’ve said it before, but he would look at me, no matter what I was doing he would keep his eyes on me and just watched me. And when we would be talking he wouldn’t even look away, once I noticed it; it actually was a little bit creepy until I settled back into it. And he did so, so many little things for me without being prompted, just to see me smile and to make me happy. He hadn’t bought so many birthday presents for me just so I could have things of my own, sure it had been a reason but not the main reason, but he had bought them because he knew it would make me happy, and by god it did. 

So I realised, maybe Steve didn’t see me as just a friend, and maybe there was some truth to these memories, thoughts, dreams, fantasies, that I had either pushed aside and decided not to touch on just yet. I decided that maybe I should. 

I should know if those had ever been true, because if they were memories then they were from a period in time where I never had been happier before in my entire life. Where I had been willing to share practically everything with Steve. Where I was willing in a war torn country to sneak into his tent and spend the night kissing him, touching him, and making him feel so, so good. And maybe I wasn’t straight, so that was something I had to figure out. 

Which means, I suddenly became a whole lot more grateful for my own laptop and headphones, leaving no hint to Steve what I was actually up to at night on my computer in the privacy of my own room. I used a secure browser still, you can never be to careful, but it’s safe to say that I’ve never once used one of those browsers to watch internet porn. At least up until that moment. 

And porn… helped. 

It wasn’t like I was an ignorant child that didn’t know where babies came from and thus had my world shaken to the ground by the act of a man and a woman going at it. I knew exactly what happened, and may have been a rather anticlimactic on one occasion where I shot someone in the act. 

But internet porn helped in the simple way that I could browse from video to video and figure out what I enjoyed and what I would (and still do) grow to hate over time. And with porn on the internet, I could watch tons of straight sex, and also gay sex if I wanted. It might sound a little bit like a boy of high school age when I say this, but I went through it all thoroughly. I tried to find clips that weren’t entirely unlike of what I remembered doing with women and with Steve, and with other men that started coming to mind. 

I thought with that, I could sort of relive it and in that way figure out where my preference laid. But I won't lie, I admittingly did get a little bit sidetracked when I came to rediscover the joys of masturbation. And for a little while I even wound up ignoring porn all together to be a helping hand. I won't bore you with that, nor give you more details because I do believe that I deserve a little bit of privacy for myself, don’t you think? And there’s probably other things you’d like to know about my life rather than compared to how many times I got off in one night. 

But porn helped, it truly did. Because through the help of internet porn I very very quickly came to realise that I had little interest in watching clips with women in them. Sure I found some of them beautiful, but that was as far as I was willing to go. In the pants department it did very little, and required a lot of coaxing. And it required my eyes to wander more to the dude rather than the woman, which was honestly quite difficult at first. They film the woman way more than they film the man. 

So to test this, I also started watching gay porn, and that… was a lot more enticing to watch. And settled the matter for me really, which I accepted a whole lot easier than I ever had accepted it before in the thirties and forties. I was gay, so fucking what, what was the world going to do about it? 

I now felt comfortable with that idea, and remembered that I had once upon a time had hated it. But it didn’t bother me in the same way. Times were different, I understood that, I had seen that change, and considering the sheer quantity, googling the topic and more, I found out that society was accepting towards it for the majority. And those who weren’t? Well, they were welcome to try and drag me off to beat me to pulp. 

Still, that didn’t mean that the morning after that realisation had been made that I went ahead and informed Steve of it. I told him a lot, but I still kept certain things to myself. And that still to this day is something I am rather private about. Besides, I had to figure out how me liking men, and the now occasional wet dreams I had about Steve, the flashes I had of heated moments in my memories. I didn’t want to ask Steve if I always had been into men, before knowing if there was some form of reality to those thoughts. 

I just plain and simple wanted to know if we ever had been a thing. If we ever had loved one another in a way that was everything but “just friends.” 

That wasn’t easy, but observing Steve as I’ve already written about helped. But that wasn’t the only obstacle. I had to come to a decision myself if it was true,  _ if _ I wanted to be with Steve like that again. I did admittingly worry that there was a risk of me ruining what we had, a solid friendship and the only person I had come to trust. I didn’t want to destroy that by asking if we had ever been lovers if it all had been in my head. Considering how I had hated the fact that I was gay, it wouldn’t be that unlikely. It was a very solid possibility that I still had to take in consideration. 

So I did what I always do in times of insecurity, and I fact checked. I looked through the five journals that I had written up with memories, dreams, moments, and I tried to puzzle in where what went. Based on what I knew from the war I tried to place moments pressed up against a tree in a timeline. Which honestly is a lot harder than you’re already thinking. It was really fucking hard. 

It was convincing though, with the way that Steve looked at me, and now when I was aware of it myself, I sort of, started to dream as well. I started to look at him in a different way, and I suppose that somewhere during that time period a fondness for Steve started to grow, combined with the general, warming feeling in my chest and in my gut that I had whenever I thought back on these so called memories of mine. How that made me want to be touched by him, how I started to cuddle up to him in the couch under the blanket out of something more than just instinct, but because I wanted to feel his arm around me and sap off his heat. Because I wanted to hear his heartbeat whenever I rested against his chest, and feel myself get comforted with how strong, how steady it was. 

I started to fall in love with him, and had been for a good couple of weeks up to months at that point. I just hadn’t realised it yet. The idea that Steve could be mine if I just asked him about it, if I was just confident enough to bring it up to him and ask if it was something I had made up. Because I knew, the longer I wanted the harder it would be to take a rejection. And I frankly wasn’t sure how I would handle it if he did. 

So when Steve one day, leant back in his chair a little bit too much when I grabbed something at the bottom of the fridge to look at me, I decided to bring it up and no longer leave it unspoken in between us. Tomorrow, not now, tomorrow. I needed to plan. 

Tomorrow ended up becoming next week, and I kept pushing and pushing it further away in fear. 

When Steve came home one morning from his run, I decided to do it quickly. I cornered myself and told Steve that I needed to speak to him, and thus I had to bring it up to him. And I rambled at first, trying to explain it that I wasn’t certain myself and that I didn’t want to ruin anything in between us with this, and that if it turned out that I was wrong I would just, bite my tongue and pretend that it had never happened before. Eventually Steve grew worried too, and asked me to just tell him. 

I didn’t get to finish the question. It didn’t matter. Steve understood what I meant. And at that moment he lit up like he was sunshine incarnate. 

 

\--

 

I was honest with Steve. I told him that I remember us, I told him that I remembered there being something with us. I told him that I wasn’t sure what that  _ us _ really meant now, but I knew that there was something there still now, even if it was different. And that I wanted to figure out what it meant with him, together, if he wanted to as well. 

Steve wanted to, oh god did he want to. 

I had the joy to experience seventh heaven with the man that I love twice. Once during the war, when everything was rushed and heated because time and the world was against us. Where we only would have moments with one another before we had to reach for our guns and fight for our lives. It almost sounds like a romantic movie, and in a way it is, but it also is the most stressful experience I have ever lived through. 

When I had the chance to go through seventh heaven with Steve for the second time, there was no war for us to fight. There was no threat to us, we had all the time in the world to take it slow and we finally did. We finally were able to figure out who we were and who we were to each other. Even for Steve, who had never once forgotten it. And it was lovely, it was so sweet and it is, still combined up to this day, the best fucking time of my life. Every moment that I’ve spent with Steve and had the chance to call him mine is the best part and time of my life, and I like to think that it was for Steve too. 

It was good though, for the both of us to start anew. We were both different people. Steve was different. He wasn’t the scrawny, asthmatic blue-eyed blonde little asshole from the thirties anymore. He wasn’t the Steve Rogers that I had fought during the second world war with anymore. He had merged into someone different, someone who I still recognized, who I at times at could still see the man from during the war, who I still could see the little kid who would fight everything that moved. 

He was someone else now, and he too needed to figure out who he was in an intimate relationship. So in a way, I’m honestly just glad that we had the chance to do that together again. That I got to be with him and that I got to wake him up with kisses. That he could hold me during the night and make me sleep better. Who would make me laugh during the day and improve my mood when I was having a rough moment. 

It was a different Steve Rogers, but still very much someone old that I loved. Just as much as it was someone knew that I came to love. 

We didn’t tell anyone about us. Not that there were many to tell. I had no friends. Steve had Sam, but I asked him not to tell him. Steve also had Natasha, and just like Sam I asked him not to tell her, for more reasons than one, one being our complicated sort of relationship and encounter we had with one another in The Red Room. I did feel guilty, I truly did because Steve wanted to shout out his love for me to the world, and I wouldn’t let him. 

I wanted to know who I was first before the world got to know who I was. The world still hated me, to them I was still The Winter Soldier, and while there was a heated debate going on if I should be excused for my crimes or put to trial. People were still calling out for my blood, and I didn’t want that to flow over on Steve. I wanted to tell the world, but I wanted to tell the world when it was more at ease towards me. When I knew fully who I decided to be, I wanted to tell the world on my terms. The problem was that I hadn’t finished writing my terms and conditions just yet. 

I wanted to do it right, I wanted to tell the world that I was gay and that I was in love with Steve, and that he was my partner in the right way. The way that I chose to tell it. I didn’t want it to be forced out of my mouth, have the matter taken out of my hands. I would tell the world eventually, when I was ready for it. Turns out that jealousy has a fun way of controlling that. 

By then I was much more comfortable going out with Steve, from previously having been a hermit I would now start to come along for grocery trips, walks in the neighbourhood. You  name it. Coming out of the apartment did me good. 

There’s no point in beating about the bush when it comes to this, and let’s be honest here. I don’t even sound like I’m bragging when I say that Steve is a good looking man. I know it, you know it, the world knows it. Hell, they had him do those promotional shoots when The Avengers finally became a thing and the world had to learn about them. So Steve is an attractive man, and the world truly did believe that he was single. 

To be fair, we hadn’t really given them another fact on that, for as far as the world was concerned, Steve was flying solo. which meant of course for some odd reason, that he was supposedly free game for anyone to try and hit on him when all he wanted to do was to buy a bag of carrots. 

And Steve’s easy to notice, big, tall, beautiful blonde guy with blue eyes and dressed like he was part of a different century. It didn’t matter if I walked beside him or not, people wouldn’t see me, and I didn’t give them a reason to do so either. If we went out I’d still be dressed in dark, big baggy clothes, with my hair usually in a mess so I looked like a hobo next to him. And thus, people flirted with Steve when we were out and I was the wall that just stood there. 

Now I wasn’t having that, not at all. I was furious. As our relationship progressed, turned from into something light and fun where we really were just figuring one another out, to something deeper, raw and pure. To something that was more than just a little bit of Seventh Heaven and a whirlwind romance to an actual romance. So I came to hate it when people flirted with Steve, because he was  _ mine _ . Steve could turn them down as gently as he could, and he would because that’s just Steve right there in a nutshell, that didn’t mean that the next stranger wouldn’t make an attempt in getting in his pants. I may not be looking at my best, and I may have made the world think I was a hobo for a long time but damn it, I was Steve’s hobo. 

That is what kicked off the whole “Captain America comes out on Twitter” debacle and told the world that he was bi. Because I was jealous, I was sick of people working the registers giving him cocky and coy comments, prepositions he’d never take them up on to begin with. I wanted the world to know that he was mine, and maybe it was time to tell the world finally that he was mine, and always would be mine. 

The younger generation reading this book knows exactly what happened. Steve posted a picture on his Twitter of him and I on the couch together, and he told the world that he was in love with me. It set Twitter on fire, in all sorts of flames. Flames of support, flames of people happy that Steve was part of the queer community, flames from republican senators denouncing him and the list goes on and on. 

What was the most important to me was the fact that the world now knew. I hoped that with that some people would just give it up in their attempt to pursue him. It helped, there were still some assholes out there that flirted with him and who didn’t give a fuck that he was with someone else. But it eased up, and more importantly, now we both could just walk down the street together the amount of times I came along with Steve and we could hold one another’s hands, we could show our love to the world. 

Mostly, if I have to be entirely honest with you, I was just really happy that I was given the opportunity to kiss him whenever I wanted to. Wherever I wanted to, in front of whoever I wanted to do so. Which really, when you think about, has been the one and only thing both of us have wanted to do ever since the thirties.

So life has a funny way of giving you what you want, in the end. You really just have to hang in there for it to come your way. I’ve loved Steve since I was a teenager, and now I finally was getting my shot at having him exactly how I wanted to be with him. I wasn’t going to give that up for anything. I finally had the centre of the universe. I’m very happy to say that to this day that he’s still the centre of my universe. 

 

~~*~~

 

Bucky wasn’t surprised in the least when he felt Steve’s arms around his waist. He had almost seen it coming when he had handed Steve the chapter to read through. It wasn’t a surprise at all to him, even if he hadn’t known when Steve would be finished reading it. So when he felt those strong arms around him, he put down the freshly laundered and dried shirts in the wardrobe and put his hand on top of Steve’s. Bucky almost wanted to shiver when he felt Steve’s lips against his neck. 

“I finished reading,” Steve whispered against his skin, barely taking his lips of the back of Bucky’s neck. The arms started to hold him a little bit tighter, leaving Bucky no way to pull away if he wanted to. Which was fine, he didn’t want to. He felt like the safest he had ever been when Steve held him close like that. Times like these he liked to imagine he could even feel Steve’s heartbeat against his chest. At least he pretended that he did. 

“And?” Bucky asked him, knowing full well that Steve would have loved the chapter. So he didn’t bother asking him if he liked it. Instead he just went straight to asking Bucky for his opinion instead. 

“I thought it was very sweet,” Steve whispered, dragging those lips down to the nook of his neck where it met his shoulder, and rested his chin on it. “I love reading how you fell in love with me again. And I love reading how you write about watching me and loving me. It’s… sweet. In a tender way. Soft way, not sugary sweet, you know?” 

“Not really but I’ll take it.” Bucky chuckled. He leant back, allowing Steve to take his full body weight in his chest. Steve moved his arms from around Bucky’s waist, to just over his chest and pulled him in for another kiss on his shoulder. “I liked writing about it, too. I liked that chapter, it was back to happier stuff.”   
“I know,” Steve responded, and Bucky didn’t have to look back to know that Steve was smiling against him. “It’s all good stuff from now onwards, isn’t it? I mean, you got the most important thing down, us. The rest is just, filler up until the end right? Tell the world that Captain America is retired and now lives a boring family life with two dogs. Tell them about your little yard and veggies, the goats. Hmm? Are you gonna add a picture in the book off the goats and the dogs?” 

“Are you kidding me Steve? Avengers 2.0 will be the cover picture of the book. And I’ll be letting people know that they’re named after your former colleagues as well.” Bucky laughed a little bit at the idea. Maybe he’d even add in a copy of the picture at the back, put some dotted lines underneath them so people could fill it in with their guesses. 

“Are you going to write in the book which goat is who?” Steve asked, and Bucky had to laugh again at the hopeful tone in his voice. He twisted around in Steve’s grip and put his hands in Steve’s neck, toying with the bit of hair in the nape of his neck. The fact that to this day Steve had only figured out Clint amused Bucky beyond belief. 

“I’ll let the world know which goat is which when you’ve finally managed to make a guess that’s correct. I’ll be sure to post a picture to your twitter with you next to it. It’ll get to say  _ Steve finally figured out who is Bruce _ ,” he said, Steve threw back his head and cackled before looking like a mischievous little child. 

“So there  _ is _ a goat named Bruce?” Steve raised an eyebrow. Bucky rolled his eyes and pulled him in for a soft, sweet kiss. 


End file.
